[Book 25] Originals by Adam Grant

Originals reveals the most successful methods and tactics for bringing new ideas to life. Adam explains that being original means standing for something well thought out and specific, not just against the status quo. To enhance your audience’s receptivity to new ideas, openly admit known flaws to disarm them. This will redirect their reaction from resistance to feedback and suggestions to improve. Paradoxically, the most effective originals are cautious and risk-adverse. They throughly evaluate and iterate on their ideas, move slowly, and balance risk-taking with stable approaches. As an aspiring originalist, this book has greatly improved my approach to challenging the status quo and building alliances to support new ways of thinking.

You should read this book if you…

• want tactics for how to effectively stand out and receive buy-in for new ideas
• need to be convinced that being original doesn’t necessitate taking big risks
• want to inspire your team to improve upon the status quo

Favorite Quote

“Social scientists have long demonstrated this middle- status conformity effect. If you’re perched at the top, you’re expected to be different and therefore have the license to deviate. Likewise, if you’re still at the bottom of a status hierarchy, you have little to lose and everything to gain by being original. But the middle segment of that hierarchy— where the majority of people in an organization are found— is dominated by insecurity. Now that you have a bit of respect, you value your standing in the group and don’t want to jeopardize it. To maintain and then gain status, you play a game of follow- the- leader, conforming to prove your worth as a group member“

Additional Information

Year Published: 2016
Book Ranking (from 1-10): 9 – Excellent – Broad and very well articulated insights
Ease of Read (from 1-5): 3 – Average

Key Highlights

1. I learned that great creators don’t necessarily have the deepest expertise but rather seek out the broadest perspectives. I saw how success is not usually attained by being ahead of everyone else but by waiting patiently for the right time to act
2. The hallmark of originality is rejecting the default and exploring whether a better option exists
3. The starting point is curiosity: pondering why the default exists in the first place. We’re driven to question defaults when we experience vuja de, the opposite of déjà vu. Déjà vu occurs when we encounter something new, but it feels as if we’ve seen it before. Vuja de is the reverse—we face something familiar, but we see it with a fresh perspective that enables us to gain new insights into old problems 
4. Coombs suggested that in their daily lives, successful people do the same thing with risks, balancing them out in a portfolio. When we embrace danger in one domain, we offset our overall level of risk by exercising caution in another domain
5. If originals aren’t reliable judges of the quality of their ideas, how do they maximize their odds of creating a masterpiece? They come up with a large number of ideas.
6. Products don’t create value, customers do
7. Most of us assume that to be persuasive, we ought to emphasize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. That kind of powerful communication makes sense if the audience is supportive. But when you’re pitching a novel idea or speaking up with a suggestion for change, your audience is likely to be skeptical. Under those circumstances, for at least four reasons, it’s actually more effective to adopt Griscom’s form of powerless communication by accentuating the flaws in your idea. This disarms the audience
8. Leading with limitations a) gives leaders a problem to solve, b) makes you look smart for realizing the limitations,  c) makes you more trustworthy and d) leaves the audience with a more favorable assessment because they can’t think of many more reasons why not to do it
9. We often undercommunicate our ideas because they’re already so familiar to us that we underestimate how much exposure an audience needs to comprehend and buy into them
10. Interestingly, exposures are more effective when they’re short and mixed in with other ideas, to help maintain the audience’s curiosity. It’s also best to introduce a delay between the presentation of the idea and the evaluation of it, which provides time for it to sink in. If you’re making a suggestion to a boss, you might start with a 30-second elevator pitch during a conversation on Tuesday, revisit it briefly the following Monday, and then ask for feedback at the end of the week
11. Social scientists have long demonstrated this middle- status conformity effect. If you’re perched at the top, you’re expected to be different and therefore have the license to deviate. Likewise, if you’re still at the bottom of a status hierarchy, you have little to lose and everything to gain by being original. But the middle segment of that hierarchy— where the majority of people in an organization are found— is dominated by insecurity. Now that you have a bit of respect, you value your standing in the group and don’t want to jeopardize it. To maintain and then gain status, you play a game of follow- the- leader, conforming to prove your worth as a group member.
12. When you put off a task, you buy yourself time to engage in divergent thinking rather than foreclosing on one particular idea. As a result, you consider a wider range of original concepts and ultimately choose a more novel direction. 
13. Being original doesn’t require being first. It just means being different and better
14. Coalitions between environmental and gay- rights activists, the women’s movement and the peace movement, and a marine base and a Native American tribe. They found that shared tactics were an important predictor of alliances. Even if they care about different causes, groups find affinity when they use the same methods of engagement
15. Third, and most important, it is our former adversaries who are the most effective at persuading others to join our movements. They can marshal 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
16. When our character is praised, we internalize it as part of our identities. Instead of seeing ourselves as engaging in isolated moral acts, we start to develop a more unified self- concept as a moral person
17. Minority viewpoints are important, not because they tend to prevail but because they stimulate divergent attention and thought. As a result, even when they are wrong they contribute to the detection of novel solutions and decisions that, on balance, are qualitatively better. Dissenting opinions are useful even when they’re wrong
18. A culture that focuses too heavily on solutions becomes a culture of advocacy, dampening inquiry. If you’re always expected to have an answer ready, you’ll arrive at meetings with your diagnosis complete, missing out on the chance to learn from a broad range of perspectives
19. “Argue like you’re right and listen like you’re wrong.”
20. Neuroscience research suggests that when we’re anxious, the unknown is more terrifying than the negative. Once people have imagined the worst, they feel more in control. In some sense, they’ve peaked in anxiety before their actual performance. By the time they get to the event itself they’ve taken care of almost everything
21. It’s easier to rebel when it feels like an act of conformity
22. In a study of hundreds of managers and employees who championed environmental issues at their companies, the successful campaigns didn’t differ from the failures in the amount of emotion they expressed, their use of metaphors or logical arguments, their efforts to consult key stakeholders, or their framing of a green movement as an opportunity or threat. The distinguishing factor was a sense of urgency. To convince leaders to sponsor the issue, create a task force, and spend time and money on it, the environmental champions had to articulate why the original cause needed to be adopted now
23. 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
24. To channel anger productively, instead of venting about the harm that a perpetrator has done, we need to reflect on the victims who have suffered from it. Focusing on the victims of injustice spurs us to speak truth to power