This is a short book composed of columns written by the Heath brothers, authors of Made to Stick. If you have read Made to Stick, they you will like this.
Each chapter in the book focuses one topic and it makes you wonder about it. Here are a few interesting bits from the book.
In I love you. Now what?, they ponder why don't companies have centers to receive praise. Most companies have centers to receive complaints and feedback. Why not praise?
In The horror of mutual funds: Why false information is credible, they observe how cherry picking of data drives investments in mutual funds. However, a more interesting observation is how a mutual fund investor (who could be making more money) is happy due to her ignorance about what she missed out on.
In The future fails again, they mention about building a better milkshake from Clay Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma. The reasoning is that we hire objects and technologies to do a job for us, e.g. iPod for on-the-go access to our music collection, Google for quick and effective search. So, a good (not sufficient) test for a product is to answer the question what job is it designed to do?
The example of how Paul O'Neill made Alcoa one of the safest companies in the world is very interesting. He "merely" enforced the acceptable rate of accidents was no accidents. His approach to enforcement was if anyone ever calculates how much money we're saving by being safe, they're fired. Safety was made a precondition instead of a priority by telling people not to budget for safety. How cool is that!
Their take on think out of the box is find a new box, cos' constraints can be liberating.
The best lines in the book are from The Gripping Statistic -- A good statistic is one that aids a decision or shapes an opinion. For a stat to do either of those, it must be dragged within the everyday. That's your job -- to do the dragging. In our world of billions and trillions, that can be a lot of manual labor. But it's worth it: A number of people can grasp is a number that can make a difference.
They end the book with a great definition of Grit. Grit is not synonymous with hard work. It involves a certain single-mindedness. An ungritty prison inmate will mount a daring new escape attempt every month, but a gritty prison inmate will tunnel his way out one spoonful of concrete at a time. Shawshank Redemption!!!
If you are hopping on a flight, download the free book on your Kindle or Nook and read it. You will enjoy it.
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