How Non-Conformists Move the World
Rating
3/5
Date Started
10/9/2022
Date Completed
10/15/2022
Five Powerful Quotes from the Book
Quote 1
“But don’t day jobs distract us from doing our best work? Common sense suggests that creative accomplishments can’t flourish without big windows of time and energy, and companies can’t thrive without intensive effort. Those assumptions overlook the central benefit of a balance risk portfolio. Having a sense of security in one realm gives us the freedom to be original in another. By covering our bases financially, we escape the pressure to publish half-baked books, sell shotty art, or launch untested businesses.
“When Pierre Omidyar built eBay, it was just a hobby. He kept working as a programmer for the next 9 months, only leaving after his online marketplace was netting him more money than his job. ‘The best entrepreneurs are not risk-maximizers,’ Endeavor co-founder Linda Rottenberg observes, based on decades of experience training many of the world’s great entrepreneurs. ‘They take the risk out of risk-taking.'”
Pithy Summary
Quote 2
“But in reality, the biggest barrier to originality is not idea generation, it’s idea selection. In one analysis, when over 200 people dreamed up more than 1,000 ideas for new ventures and products, 87% were completely unique. Our companies, communities, and countries don’t necessarily suffer from a shortage of novel ideas, they’re constrained by a shortage of people who excel at choosing the right novel ideas.”
Pithy Summary
Quote 3
“Our instinct is to sever our bad relationships and salvage the ambivalent ones, but the evidence suggests we ought to do the opposite: cut our frenemies and attempt to convert our enemies.
“In efforts to challenge the status quo, originals often ignore their opponents. If someone is already resisting a change, the logic goes, there’s no point in wasting your time on him. Instead, focus on strengthening your ties with people who already support you. But 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.
“Half a century ago, eminent psychologist Elliot Aronson conducted a series of experiments suggesting that we’re often more sensitive to gains and losses in esteem than the level of esteem itself. When someone always supports us, we take it for granted and can discount it. But we regard someone who began as a rival and then became an enthusiastic supporter as an authentic advocate. ‘A person whose liking for us increases over time will be liked better than one who has always liked us,’ Aronson explains. ‘We find it more rewarding when someone’s initially negative feelings toward us gradually become positive than if that person’s feelings for us were entirely positive all along.’
“While we’ll have an especially strong affinity toward our converted rivals, will they feel the same way toward us? Yes. This is (an) advantage of converting resisters. To like us, they have to work especially hard to overcome their initial negative impressions, telling themselves, I must have been wrong about that person. Moving forward, to avoid the cognitive dissonance of changing their minds yet again, they’ll be especially motivated to maintain a positive relationship.
“It is our former adversaries who are the most effective at persuading others to join our movements. They can marshall better arguments on our behalf, because they understand the doubts and misgivings of resisters and fence-sitters. And they’re a more credible source, because they haven’t just been Pollyanna followers or “yes men” all along.”
Pithy Summary
Quote 4
“To counter apathy, most change agents focus on presenting an inspiring vision of the future. This is an important message to convey, but it’s not the type of communication that should come first. If you want people to take risks, you need first to show what’s wrong with the present. To drive people out of their comfort zones, you have to cultivate dissatisfaction, frustration, or anger at the current state of affairs, making it a guaranteed loss. ‘The greatest communicators of all time,’ says communication expert Nancy Duarte – who has spent her career studying the shape of superb presentations – ‘start by establishing what is: here’s the status quo.’ Then, they ‘compare that to what could be,’ making ‘that gap as big as possible.'”
Pithy Summary
Quote 5
“In one study, parents of ordinary children had an average of six rules, like specific schedules for homework and bedtime. Parents of highly creative children had an average of less than one rule and tended to ‘place emphasis on moral values, rather than on specific rules,’ psychologist Teresa Amabile reports.
“Parent and Teacher Actions:
- “Ask children what their role models would do. Children feel free to take initiative when they look at problems through the eyes of originals. Ask children what they would like to improve in their family or school. Then have them identify a real person or fictional character they admire for being unusually creative and inventive. What would that person do in this situation?
- “Link good behaviors to moral character. Many parents and teachers praise helpful actions, but children are more generous when they’re commended for being helpful people—it becomes part of their identity. If you see a child do something good, try saying, “You’re a good person because you ().” Children are also more ethical when they’re asked to be moral people—they want to earn the identity. If you want a child to share a toy, instead of asking, “Will you share?” ask, “Will you be a sharer?”
- “Explain how bad behaviors have consequences for others. When children misbehave, help them see how their actions hurt other people. “How do you think this made her feel?” As they consider the negative impact on others, children begin to feel empathy and guilt, which strengthens their motivation to right the wrong—and to avoid the action in the future.
- “Emphasize values over rules. Rules set limits that teach children to adopt a fixed view of the world. Values encourage children to internalize principles for themselves. When you talk about standards, like the parents of the Holocaust rescuers, describe why certain ideals matter to you and ask children why they’re important.
- “Create novel niches for children to pursue. Just as laterborns sought out more original niches when conventional ones were closed to them, there are ways to help children carve out niches. One of my favorite techniques is the Jigsaw Classroom: bring students together for a group project, and assign each of them a unique part. For example, when writing a book report on Eleanor Roosevelt’s life, one student worked on her childhood, another on her teenage years, and a third on her role in the women’s movement. Research shows that this reduces prejudice—children learn to value each other’s distinctive strengths. It can also give them the space to consider original ideas instead of falling victim to groupthink. To further enhance the opportunity for novel thinking, ask children to consider a different frame of reference. How would Roosevelt’s childhood have been different if she grew up in China? What battles would she have chosen to fight there?”
Pithy Summary
About the Book
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World – Audiobook | Ebook | Hardcover – “Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent. Learn from an entrepreneur who pitches his start-ups by highlighting the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who overturned the rule of secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees for failing to criticize him, and a TV executive who didn’t even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor. The payoff is a set of groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and improving the status quo.”
About the Author
Adam Grant – “Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and bestselling author who explores the science of motivation, generosity, original thinking, and rethinking… Grant has been Wharton’s top-rated professor for 7 straight years. As an organizational psychologist, he is a leading expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, rethink assumptions, and live more generous and creative lives. He has been recognized as one of the world’s 10 most influential management thinkers and Fortune’s 40 under 40.”
Additional Resources
Tags
Business | Nonfiction | Psychology | Self-Improvement