Name: Little Bets
Rating: 3.111111111111111 (9 reviews)
ISBN: 9781847940490

Peter Sims

How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries

Little Bets

What do Apple CEO Steve Jobs, comedian Chris Rock, prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, the story developers at Pixar films, and the Army Chief of Strategic Plans all have in common? Bestselling author Peter Sims found that all of them have achieved breakthrough results by methodically taking small, experimental steps in order to discover and develop new ideas. Rather than believing they have to start with a big idea or plan a whole project out in advance, trying to foresee the final outcome, they make a series of little bets about what might be a good direction, learning from lots of little failures and from small but highly significant wins that allow them to happen upon unexpected avenues and arrive at extraordinary outcomes. Based on deep and extensive research, including more than 200 interviews with leading innovators, Sims discovered that productive, creative thinkers and doers—from Ludwig van Beethoven to Thomas Edison and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos—practice a key set of simple but ingenious experimental methods—such as failing quickly to learn fast, tapping into the genius of play, and engaging in highly immersed observation—that free their minds, opening them up to making unexpected connections and perceiving invaluable insights. These methods also unshackle them from the constraints of overly analytical thinking and linear problem solving that our education places so much emphasis on, as well as from the fear of failure, all of which thwart so many of us in trying to be more innovative. Reporting on a fascinating range of research, from the psychology of creative blocks to the influential Silicon Valley–based field of design thinking, Sims offers engaging and wonderfully illuminating accounts of breakthrough innovators at work, including how Hewlett-Packard stumbled onto the breakaway success of the first hand-held calculator; the remarkable storyboarding process at Pixar films that has been the key to their unbroken streak of box office successes; the playful discovery process by which Frank Gehry arrived at his critically acclaimed design for Disney Hall; the aha revelation that led Amazon to pursue its wildly successful affiliates program; and the U.S. Army’s ingenious approach to counterinsurgency operations that led to the dramatic turnaround in Iraq. Fast paced and as entertaining as it is illuminating, Little Bets offers a whole new way of thinking about how to break away from the narrow strictures of the methods of analyzing and problem solving we were all taught in school and unleash our untapped creative powers.

Kolle

when people say "book that should've been a blog post", this is what they're talking about

Hannah Riddle

I read this book for my MBA program. It has some really good tips on modern day entrepreneurship and innovation but the content can get a bit repetitive.

Lance Willett

Goal: Replace your linear thinking with a more experimental approach to learn faster. Do things to learn and discover what to do.

Key point:

Being able to create, navigate amid uncertainty, and adapt using an experimental approach will be a vital advantage.

Fundamentals of the little bets approach:

1. Experiment: Learn by doing. Fail quickly to learn fast. Develop experiments and prototypes to gather insights, identify problems, and build up creative ideas.
2. Play: A playful, improvisational, and humorous atmosphere quiets our inhibitions when ideas are incubating or newly hatched, and prevents creative ideas from being snuffed out our prematurely judged.
3. Immerse: Take time to get out into the world to gather fresh ideas and insights, in order to understand deeper human motivations and desires, and absorb how things work from the ground up.
4. Define: Use insights gathered throughout the process to define specific problems and needs before solving them.
5. Reorient: Be flexible in pursuit of larger goals and aspirations, making good use of small wins to make necessary pivots and chart the course to completion.
6. Iterate: Repeat, refine, and test frequently armed with better insights, information, and assumptions as time goes on.

Hat tip: Ian Stewart. Read free copy from my local library.

Gabriel Ayuso

Alfredo santos

How can errors produce perfection? How can failure fuel ambition? How can confusion enhance creativity? The answer: little bets. The little bets approach is about using negativity to positive effect. If your plans fall apart, refine them; if you don't know where best to begin, just begin somewhere. Every decision is a risk: take a chance and see what happens. InLittle Bets, bestselling author Peter Sims turns problems on their heads and outlines a counter-intuitive path to perfection. Using real-life case studies from the worlds of business, design, warfare and even comedy, he shows that it can be more rational to act first and think later, more efficient to fail and find out whatdoesn'twork. It's a flexible philosophy that has both saved corporate giants such as Apple and Pixar and inspired the third-world microfinancing industry. When success is the only acceptable outcome,Little Betsadvocates a bold and radical approach in which failure is good, questions are solutions, and excellence is not a means but an end.

Little Bets How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries

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