The World's Best Book Summaries
What famous inventions resulted from mistakes? How do errors impact your thinking? Best-selling author and theorist Steven Johnson explores where good ideas come from. One source might surprise you: errors. Johnson explains that, when we learn from our mistakes, we often find ourselves in exciting new territory. Continue reading to learn how mistakes can lead to new ideas.
What is customer-centric innovation? How can you make your customers satisfied with your product? The customer is the most important person to make happy when it comes to creating and distributing products. In Ten Types of Innovation, Larry Keeley and his co-authors identify four types of innovations that relate to how your customers perceive and interact with your company. Find out how to enforce customer-centric innovation in your company.
What’s behind the 2023 salary increase in low-wage jobs in the US? Will wages of America’s lowest-paid workers continue to rise? For four decades, the gap between America’s lowest- and highest-paid workers grew. Then came the Covid-19 pandemic, which hit the “reset” button for low-wage workers and reversed one-quarter of that gap. Let’s take a look at what caused the 2023 wage increase and if it’s expected to continue.
Why do the overwhelming majority of innovation projects fail? And more importantly, what can you do to innovate successfully? In Ten Types of Innovation, Doblin Innovation firm co-founder Larry Keeley and his co-authors argue that the key to success often lies in knowing which types of innovation would most help a given project succeed. Understanding the ten types of innovation and the importance of combining them correctly can help you understand why most innovation projects fail and how to make your projects succeed. Here’s an overview of Larry Keeley’s types of innovation.
How broad is your knowledge? Do you deliberately repurpose works that you’ve already created? In Someday Is Today: 22 Simple Actionable Ways to Propel Your Creative Life, Matthew Dicks discusses ways to free up time to maximize your creative potential. He specifically recommends boosting your creativity by consuming varied content and reusing your old work. Continue reading to learn how to become more creative in these two ways.
Why do most innovation projects fail? More importantly, what can you do to keep your own innovations from succumbing to the same fate? In Ten Types of Innovation, Larry Keeley, cofounder of the Doblin Innovation Firm, and his Doblin colleagues Ryan Pikkel, Brian Quinn, and Helen Walters answer these questions. Based on their experience coaching companies through innovation projects, they argue that the answer lies at least partly in knowing how to classify innovations. They observe that there are ten fundamental types of innovation. Read below for a brief overview of Ten Types of Innovation.
Do you have big dreams but continually fail to make much progress? How many moments have you squandered just today? In Someday Is Today, Matthew Dicks explains how you can eliminate time-wasters and increase your efficiency on necessary tasks. Then he argues that you must learn how to maximize productivity and reach your full potential so you can become as successful as possible, as soon as possible. Continue reading for Dicks’s top six principles for maximizing productivity and an exercise to help you apply them.
How does mental health affect work performance? How have bad mental health treatments destroyed well-known leaders? Both good and bad mental health affect work performance. For most, it’s important to be in a healthy state of mind when working. However, some leaders actually benefit from poor mental health, especially during crisis situations. Learn why A First-Rate Madness by Nassir Ghaemi says you need to check in on your mental health as a leader.
Do you and your teammates speak freely? Do people in your organization take the blame when it’s due, or do they point the finger elsewhere? Self-deception—our tendency to see the world around us in a distorted way—is a common personal and organizational problem. Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute explains how self-deception derails our relationships and keeps organizations from achieving the results they want. Continue reading for our Leadership and Self-Deception study guide.
Do you have a million ideas in your head that seem to go nowhere? Are you looking for fresh ideas to solve specific problems? Steven Johnson takes us on an exciting exploration of good ideas and novel innovations. For an idea to be good, he says, it must be built upon accumulated knowledge and be put forward at a time when users can conceive of how to use the idea and when the needed resources for the idea are available. Keep reading to learn how to develop ideas and, ultimately, advance knowledge and society.