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Originals

Originals

Author: Adam Grant Created time: March 13, 2021 5:53 AM Page No.: 338 Progress: ✔️

Points

  1. The best bet is to blindly generate novel ideas and gather more feedback from fellow creators to hone his vision about which ones might prove useful. As an investor, you’ll be able to see more clearly, but you’ll still be making one-eyed gambles.
  2. Don’t change the system rather aimed to earn status by becoming part of the system and then changing it from within.
  3. Agreeable and Disagreeable
  1. The fall from low to lower hardly hurts. The fall from the middle to low is devastating.
  2. Research shows that the mistakes we regret are not errors of commission, But errors of omission.
  3. Pioneers and Settlers
  1. One study of over three thousand startups indicates that roughly three out of every four fail because of premature scaling—making investments that the market isn’t yet ready to support.
  2. The key lesson here is that if you have an original idea, it’s a mistake to rush with the sole purpose of beating your competitors to the finish line.
  3. Conceptual & Experimental innovators
  1. The more experiments you run, the less constrained you become by your ideas from the past. Instead of getting mired in the tunnel vision of your imagination, by looking out into the world, you improve the acuity of your peripheral vision.
  2. The message was clear: if you were a true believer, you’d be all in. The more strongly you identify with an extreme group, the harder you seek to differentiate yourself from more moderate groups that threaten your values.
  3. Shared tactics only facilitate alliances up to a point. When the overlap in tactics between groups was more than 61 percent, coalitions became less likely. When their methods are pretty much the same, groups simply have less to learn and gain from one another; their efforts are more likely to be redundant.
  4. You should start with why and this is excellent advice—unless you’re doing something original that challenges the status quo.
  5. Negative & Ambivalent Relationship
  1. Our best allies aren’t the people who have supported us all along. They’re the ones who started out against us and then came around to our side.
  1. Instead of assuming that others share our principles, or trying to convince them to adopt ours, we ought to present our values as a means of pursuing theirs.
  1. Overall, later borns were twice as likely as firstborns to take risks.
  1. Good explanations enable children to develop a code of ethics that often coincides with societal expectations.
  2. Instead of “Please don’t cheat,” changed the appeal to “Please don’t be a cheater.”
  1. Human rights advocate Malala Yousafzai was moved by reading biographies of Meena, an activist for equality in Afghanistan, and of Martin Luther King, Jr. King was inspired by Gandhi, as was Nelson Mandela.
  2. Across industries, there were three dominant templates: professional, star, and commitment.
  1. The more CEOs sought advice from friends and colleagues who shared their perspectives. They favored the comfort of consensus over the discomfort of dissent, which was precisely the opposite of what they should have done.
  1. Dissenting opinions are useful even when they’re wrong.
  2. Firms that deviated from the founder’s original blueprint had 2.3 times higher odds of failure compared to similar firms that stayed with the founder’s original model.
  1. If you hire people who fit your culture, you’ll end up with people who reinforce rather than challenge one another’s perspectives.
  1. When you have a preference, groups would need to consider more articles against it than in support of it.
  2. You have to raise the problems before pursuing solutions.
  3. The fact that early in the training, employees are encouraged to question the principles. Rather than waiting for employees to become experienced.
  4. The more principles you have, the greater the odds that employees focus on different values or interpret the same values differently.
  5. “Shapers” are independent thinkers: curious, non-conforming, and rebellious. They practice brutal, nonhierarchical honesty. And they act in the face of risk because their fear of not succeeding exceeds their fear of failing.
  6. When self-doubts creep in, defensive pessimists don’t allow themselves to be crippled by fear.
  1. Neuroscience research suggests that when we’re anxious, the unknown is more terrifying than the negative.
  2. When you feeling negative try to say “I am excited”.
  3. If you want people to go out on a limb, you need to show them that they’re not alone.
  4. Use humor as a weapon against fear.
  5. We can dramatically shift risk preferences just by changing a few words to emphasize losses rather than gains.
  6. If you want people to take risks, you need first to show what’s wrong with the present.
  7. Research demonstrates that when we’re angry at others, we aim for retaliation or revenge. But when we’re angry for others, we seek out justice and a better system. We don’t just want to punish; we want to help.
  8. Instead of taking the status quo for granted, ask why it exists in the first place. When you remember that rules and systems were created by people, it becomes clear that they’re not set in stone—and you begin to consider how they can be improved.
  9. Immerse yourself in a new domain.
  10. When you’re generating new ideas, deliberately stop when your progress is incomplete. By taking a break in the middle of your brainstorming or writing process, you’re more likely to engage in divergent thinking and give ideas time to incubate.
  11. It’s hard to judge your own ideas, because you tend to be too enthusiastic, and you can’t trust your gut if you’re not an expert in the domain. It’s also tough to rely on managers, who are typically too critical when they evaluate ideas. To get the most accurate reviews, run your pitches by peers—they’re poised to spot the potential and the possibilities.
  12. Remember that if you don’t take initiative, the status quo will persist.
  13. You can create urgency by implementing the “kill the company” exercise from Lisa Bodell, CEO of futurethink. Gather a group together and invite them to spend an hour brainstorming about how to put the organization out of business—or decimate its most popular product, service, or technology. Then, hold a discussion about the most serious threats and how to convert them into opportunities to transition from defense to offense.
  14. Ask for problems, not solutions.
  1. When misbehave, help them see how their actions hurt other people. “How do you think this made her feel?”.
  2. Emphasize values over rules.

Story

Ban the words like , love , and hate . At the nonprofit DoSomething.org, CEO Nancy Lublin forbade employees from using the words like, love, and hate, because they make it too easy to give a visceral response without analyzing it. Employees aren’t allowed to say they prefer one Web page over another; they have to explain their reasoning with statements like “This page is stronger because the title is more readable than the other options.” This motivates people to contribute new ideas rather than just rejecting existing ones.

Martin Luther King, Jr., too, was an experimental innovator. Despite being just thirty-four when he gave his “dream” speech, it was his twentieth year of speaking publicly about civil rights. At fifteen, he made the state finals for delivering an original speech on civil rights. He spent the intervening decades testing out a range of possible lyrics to articulate his vision. In the thousands of speeches that he delivered, he was constantly rehearsing different melodies and refrains.

Shifting the focus from why to how can help people become less radical. In a series of experiments, when people with extreme political views were asked to explain the reasons behind their policy preferences, they stuck to their guns. Explaining why gave them a chance to affirm their convictions. But when asked to explain how their preferred policies work, they became more moderate. Considering how led them to confront the gaps in their knowledge and realize that some of their extreme views were impractical.

Emphasizing consequences for others can motivate adults, too. In hospitals, to encourage doctors and nurses to wash their hands more often, my colleague David Hofmann and I posted two different signs near soap and gel dispensers:

Hand hygiene prevents you from catching diseases.

Hand hygiene prevents patients from catching diseases.

The sign on the left had no effect whatsoever. The sign on the right made a significant difference: merely mentioning patients instead of you led medical professionals to wash their hands 10 percent more often and use 45 percent more soap and gel.

When hundreds of women who graduated from Radcliffe College were asked in their early thirties to name the people who had the greatest influence on their lives, the vast majority mentioned parents and mentors. Seventeen years later, psychologists Bill Peterson and Abigail Stewart measured the women’s commitments to changing things for the better for future generations. Naming a parent as a major influence accounted for less than one percent of the women’s motivations to drive meaningful change. The women who were pursuing originality had been influenced a decade and a half earlier not by their parents, but by their mentors.

While Kodak hired men with advanced science degrees, Land sought a more diverse workforce, employing women with artistic backgrounds and men straight out of the navy. Just like the Silicon Valley founders with commitment blueprints, he didn’t worry about the specific skills or star qualities of the people he took on; his focus was rather on whether they would value-generating novel ideas and dedicate themselves to the mission. Surrounded by others who shared the same passions and goals, his employees felt a strong sense of belonging and cohesiveness. When you’re bonded that strongly with your colleagues and your organization, it’s hard to imagine working anywhere else.

When I polled executives and students about the strongest culture they had ever encountered in an organization, the landslide winner was Bridgewater Associates. Headquartered in a Connecticut town, Bridgewater handles over $170 billion in investments for governments, pension funds, universities, and charities. Its philosophy is outlined in a set of over two hundred principles written by the founder. Although the company manages money, the principles don’t contain a word about investing. They are maxims about how to think and act in any situation you might encounter at work or in life if you want to do meaningful work and build meaningful relationships.

The principles have been downloaded more than two million times. New employees are hired based on an assessment of how well they fit with the way of operating that’s outlined in the principles. They are trained in an intensive boot camp modeled after the military, where they are asked to reflect on and discuss the principles, placed in emotionally intense situations to practice them, and evaluated on how well they integrate them into their behaviors. Although there’s always a lot of debate, Bridgewater is a highly cohesive, close-knit community, to the point that its staff frequently call it a family, and it’s common for employees to stay for decades.

Bridgewater has a strong commitment culture in the volatile financial industry, but its performance hasn’t waned over time. The company has two major funds, both of which have delivered consistently excellent returns through two decades. They’ve been recognized for making more money for clients than any hedge fund in the history of the industry. In 2010, Bridgewater’s returns exceeded the combined profits of Google, eBay, Yahoo, and Amazon.

Bridgewater’s billionaire founder, Ray Dalio. Although he has been called the Steve Jobs of investing, employees don’t communicate with him as if he’s anyone special. Here’s an email that Jim, a client adviser, sent to Dalio after a meeting with an important potential client:

Ray— you deserve a “D-” for your performance today . . . you rambled for 50 minutes . . . It was obvious to all of us that you did not prepare at all because there is no way you could have and been that disorganized at the outset if you had prepared. We told you this prospect has been identified as a “must-win” . . . today was really bad . . . we can’t let this happen again.

But instead of reacting defensively, Dalio responded by asking others who attended the meeting to give him honest feedback and grade him on a scale from A to F.

At Bridgewater, they’re evaluated on whether they speak up—and they can be fired for failing to challenge the status quo.

Story from 1983 of how Chilean miners had mounted a protest against the country’s dictator, Pinochet. Instead of taking the risk of going on strike, they are sued for a nationwide call for citizens to demonstrate their resistance by turning their lights on and off. People weren’t afraid to do that, and soon they saw that their neighbors weren’t, either. The miners also invited people to start driving slowly. Taxi drivers slowed down; so did bus drivers. Soon, pedestrians were walking in slow motion down the streets and driving their cars and trucks at a glacial pace.

Questions

Quotes

Passionate people don’t wear their passion on their sleeves; they have it in their hearts. – Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg

They don’t wait for permission to start building something. But they gather feedback from peers before rolling things out to customers. They start fast and then slow down. – Reb Rebele

If I’m hitting .300, I’m a genius. That’s because the future cannot be predicted. The sooner you learn it, the sooner you can be good at it. – Randy Komisar

When we climb up the moral ladder, it can be rather lonely at the top. – Adem Grant

Disagreeable managers may have a bad UI but a great OS. – Google Engineer

Moving first is a tactic, not a goal – Peter Thiel

Putting old things in new combinations and new things in old combinations. – Karl Weick

Good things come to those who wait, and for experimentalists, it’s never too late to become original. – Adem Grant

It takes more emotional energy and coping resources to deal with individuals who are inconsistent. – Michelle Duffy

Originality is what everybody wants, but there’s a sweet spot. If it’s not original enough, it’s boring or trite. If it’s too original, it may be hard for the audience to understand. The goal is to push the envelope, not tear the envelope. – Rob Minkoff

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. – George Santayana

Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving. – Erma Bombeck

You don’t ask them what God they pray to. You just go and save them. – Holocaust rescuer

We give people products they do not even know they want. – Steve Jobs

Don’t let ‘loyalty’ stand in the way of truth and openness. – Ray Dalio

No one has the right to hold a critical opinion without speaking up about it. – Ray Dalio

Argue like you’re right and listen like you’re wrong. – Karl Weick

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Derek Sivers

The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader. – Derek Sivers

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