Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

by Adam Grant

Summary by Ant Hive Media

Analysis of Core Concepts

1. Extreme Risks Not Required!

Oftentimes, people who succeed as entrepreneurs are considered to be quite brave and courageous because usually we expect someone who has achieved success has done so by taking some very big risks. We are familiar with statements such as “If you’re not all in, you’re out,” or “Go big, or go home!” In this book, Grant explains that extreme risks aren’t always required in order to achieve significant success.

Yes, there are inherent risks to being an entrepreneur, but those risks can be balanced by being conservative and careful in different areas. Entrepreneurs also struggle with ambivalence, fear, and a lack of self-confidence. While it may look like entrepreneurs look for risks and enjoy taking them, most entrepreneurs actually work to avoid risks.

The common misperception is that most entrepreneurs have up and resigned from their regular careers and risked their health and home in order to commit fully to their business ideas before they actually succeed. Actually, many entrepreneurs keep their regular day jobs for a very long time even after they have achieved a level of success for the entrepreneurial endeavor. In fact, those are the entrepreneurs who actually achieve long-term success more often than the ones who desert their day jobs in the very beginning of a business start-up.

The creative people who dreamed up and started eBay, Apple, Warby Parker, and Google kept working their day jobs for a significant amount of time after their companies reached a level of success. Even the best-selling author Stephen King and the famous Queen guitarist John Legend kept working their regular jobs once their creative ideas became reality. Keeping a day job provides much stability for the entrepreneur when taking considerable risks for a new venture. It will also help ensure there has been enough time to test and perfect a product before it hits the market. Not only that, but keeping that secure day job provides opportunities to take bigger risks during the start-up phase of a creative idea. Those starting Warby Parker, an eyeglass company built online, is a great example of this. The four individuals who created Warby Parker all stayed on their regular internships and day jobs while launching the company. They used the extra time to careful analyze their start-up business plan and prepare for serious risks and challenges they might encounter once it started. Because of this, they were able to build an amazing success in the business online that many believed would fail.

People who have succeeded in becoming entrepreneurs share another common trait that was discovered over the course of several research studies – most of them tended to take limited risks during their teenage years. As teenagers, quite a few of them tried risky things like smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol, and minor shoplifting, but they did not allow those risky behaviors to go to the extreme and turn into drunk driving or felony theft. The point is they gave themselves permission to take risks without going beyond a certain point of safety. In his
book, Grant explains that being a unique and individual person means you must be open to new things and new ideas. However, being open to new things also comes with a cautious attitude just like someone who walks a tightrope between two skyscrapers is cautious enough to have a safety harness just in case.

Unique people are determined to do things better if possible – whether or not it takes more work to do so. For example, people with this type of attitude aren’t satisfied with using whatever browser their computer is set to default to such as Safari or Internet Explorer. They look to Chrome or Firefox to see if they work better than the default. In similar fashion, people who have fewer advantages in life often take things as they are and will often give up their rights without a fight while those who happen to have had more advantages from growing up with higher income levels tend to fight for the rights they believe they deserve. Those without certain advantages might live believing they are merely victims to an unfair system and find it safer to do so than trying to draw attention to it in order to effect change: “If the world is supposed to be this way, we don't need to be dissatisfied with it.” People who aspire to hold on to their originality must be willing to stand against common standards and fight for something better.

The online eyeglass company Warby Parker was the creative solution four college students came up with when they began to challenge the ridiculously high cost of obtaining prescription eyewear. When they began to look into the matter, they discovered that one big company dominated the industry and thus was able to sell eyeglasses marked up more than a hundred times what they actually cost to produce. These four guys chose to fight that common standard, or status quo as it was, and in doing so, they created a hugely successful business of selling eyeglasses online for a simple $95 after customers had a chance to try them at home for free.

Women’s suffrage is another great example of the same issue. They decided to challenge the status quo – the common standard of the time – that only men were allowed to vote. Their decision not to accept that any more led to a movement that changed the world when women gained the right to vote as well.

In the business world, empowering employees with the knowledge that jobs are not rigid is good for the overall health of the company. Allowing employees to mold their positions to best fit their own passions and skills while serving the company as needed at the same time provides more room for promotion, satisfaction with their job, and a lessening of self-imposed limitations.

For the most part, unique individuals don’t usually seek or readily embrace public placements where they are highly visible. For example, prior to being chosen to give a speech at the March on Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr. was actually afraid of speaking in a public setting. Copernicus, the man who discovered the sun did not revolve around the earth and that the opposite was actually true, was too reticent to publish his amazing discovery himself. In fact, his findings were not published until 26 years later when another professor decided to publicize Copernicus’ discovery for him. It can often be quite challenging to get past a natural fear and resistance for offering new ideas: “Advocating for new systems often requires demolishing the old way of doing things, and we hold back for fear of rocking the boat.”

2. How to Know which Great Idea is the Best (or Right) One

Every idea is not necessarily a good one, nor will a new business idea or start-up always be successful. When you are personally close to anything, it can actually hinder your ability to analyze it accurately. It can be challenging to get someone to give you an unbiased perspective on your seemingly great idea.

If you want a sure-fire way to succeed in finding the best idea that will be right for what you want, create a plethora of ideas! A plethora or mega-volume of whatever you are trying to do will serve to increase the odds that you will hit on the right one. For example, Picasso drew around 12,000 pictures and put together more than 5,800 actual works – he was definitely going to make at least one or two masterpieces out of that many works of art completed. Maya Angelou didn’t just write a poem or two and expect them to be masterpieces of poetry. She wrote 165 poems in all. Einstein put out a great amount of writings, 248 or so. People who are extremely creative will produce an extreme volume of whatever they are creating. Oftentimes historical treasures created by famous artists were actually produced during a time period when they were especially hard at work producing their art in multiples.

If you want to produce your own original work successfully, another key characteristic you need is the ability to not become obsessed with perfection. Perfectionism can kill or significantly hamper creativity when you narrow down your thought process and focus on
just one idea or one way of doing things. The goal is to create multiples of proto-types or ideas because the best ones will most likely be found in the midst of the multiples. As with anything else, occasionally there will be exceptions to this concept. Every now and then, someone will reach that successful product or idea very early on in the process – sometimes even the very first time. However, that is the exception rather than the norm. Usually creative people find success through the process of generating a lot of ideas and/or products.

Once you think you discovered the brilliant idea you’re looking for, you need something very important in able to be sure that you have. Grant explains how feedback can provide the assurance that you have indeed hit on a great idea. Each of us may be completely adamant that we truly have hit on that wonderful idea, but that very confidence can be taken too far to the detriment of success because it leaves us unwilling or unable to see it realistically. That is why it is important to share the discovery with trusted individuals and openly analyze what they have to say about it in return. Being willing to listen to constructive criticism and valid feedback will actually provide a clearer path for you to follow to success.

Quite often, the best people to provide this type of feedback are those who are also creative thinkers and fellow entrepreneurs. These individuals are better equipped to recognize creativity and originality in others and offer sincere and honest feedback in return. When you are looking for such help in the business world or your career, it is best to look to colleagues and peers instead of employers, supervisors, and managers. Those in leadership are generally trained to avoid risks and maintain the standards set by the owners of the business – regardless of the facts of the situation. Remember that new ideas differing from the status quo are much harder to gain consideration or acceptance.

When you are seeking unbiased analysis of your unique idea or project, it can help to have those evaluating your proposal do some creative but unrelated exercises first. This enables them to broaden their thinking in the moment and look at your idea with an open mind in order to evaluate potential properly.

Creativity also has a lot to do with one of the highest honors of original thinking – the Nobel Prize. Studies focused on scientists who have won the honor found that winners were connected to the arts more often than not when compared to their industry peers. Dance, music, and acting were common activities for a majority of the winners. When it comes to the same topic focused on successful entrepreneurs, creativity is commonly exhibited by their participation in hobbies involving the performing arts regardless of the type of business where they achieved their success. In general, the findings of the studies show how very important it is to have an open mind willing to consider novel solutions and think outside of the box in order to be successful.

However, creativity doesn’t necessarily have to involve the typical categories of performing arts. Exploring other countries and their inherent cultures can also boost creativity significantly. The more a culture and country differ from your home country, the more inspiration for
reativity can be found. It also helps to spend a significant amount of time immersed in that different culture in order to get a better understanding of the differences. The author of this book recommends we avoid relying primarily on our intuition or “gut feelings” when analyzing other people. Grant suggests we look beyond exciting presentations designed to impress and analyze the facts along with the action plan for success in order to evaluate whether or not an idea or product might be ready to succeed. The primary consideration isn’t necessarily the success itself, but rather it’s how that success has been achieved.

Honest and open evaluation of your own idea is extremely helpful. Think about all the ways your idea might fail and create solutions to meet that possible failure. Focus on the feedback from others analyzing your ideas in the same manner. Encourage them to look for and share negative perspectives, and use that information to better develop your idea. Everyone involved with the idea, project, or product should also have access to the detailed feedback in order to fix problem areas that have been pointed out.

3. Choose the right words at the right time, and speak up!

Your idea cannot see acceptance if you never share it with anyone. Voicing your thoughts and beliefs is one of the most important components of an original and unique person. However, if you speak up at the wrong time or with the wrong attitude or words, it may cause people to ignore or dismiss your ideas. How you offer your original thoughts goes a long way in determining whether or not people listen to you and consider the ideas you’re presenting. People will listen and truly consider your words if they admire and/or respect you as a person. Just because you happen to have authority or are in charge of people personally, it doesn’t mean they will truly hear and analyze whatever you are presenting. In order for them to accept your idea and message, you need to be able to present to people who will listen with an open mind.

However, you do not want to only present the positive details about what you’re offering. People will listen actively and believe you speak with credibility if you also give the negative side in order to show that you are looking at all aspects with a balanced approach. It is also helpful to present knowledge of your own weaknesses along with ways you plan to overcome them or the negative impact they might have on your endeavor. A listening audience clearly knows you aren’t perfect, and to present yourself as such will deeply damage your credibility. If you can be honest about yourself as well as your ideas and products, you will present yourself as a trustworthy person. Presenting an idea or product that is
offered as a piece of perfection and the answer to everyone’s problems isn’t believable, and the audience will quickly tune out everything you have to say or jump to a negative conclusion too quickly.

The founder of Babble, Rufus Griscom, realized early in the creation of his company that expressing the negative side could truly be good for his business. When he pitched his business idea to Disney, one of his slides was titled, “Here's Why You Should Not Buy Babble.” He proceeded to offer an accurate analysis of the things that were not working properly with Babble. The result being Griscom was able to sell Babble to Disney for $40 million. Disney was able to focus on the good things about Babble because they didn’t have to think of reasons why not to buy the company since Griscom provided those reasons upfront.

New ideas, novel ideas, and complicated ideas are understood and accepted easier if they are explained in a gradual process. Smaller amounts of information are given at a time as the presentation of the idea is built allowing the audience to gain a measure of comfort with the newness of it all. It is helpful if there can be a break between the actual presentation of the idea and the time people are given to evaluate it, especially if it is for something exceptionally novel and unheard of.

Not only do you need to choose the right time for your presentation, you also need to choose the right audience. This is one of the areas where Grant recommends a less than orthodox approach. He actually suggests you avoid presenting it primarily to the people who will be the most agreeable to it. Instead, he recommends you look for
people who are critical thinkers or creative and original. People who are creative and original thinkers will be more likely to be open to the ideas you present while critical thinkers will challenge your concepts. The challenges help you grow and develop not only the product but also your communication skills. In general, you want to present your thoughts to those on the top tier of the hierarchy as well as those on the ground floor.

People at the top level are more receptive to open expression while those at the bottom don’t have as much to lose when expressing their analysis honestly. The people in between those two tiers, however, are the least likely to give you beneficial feedback because they fear losing placement in the company if they go against company norms. You will have the best listening audience if you are able to present to those at the highest and lowest levels.

4. Begin procrastination.

At first thought, it definitely does not seem wise to encourage procrastination as a useful part of your journey to success. However, creativity and building an idea or product can actually be enhanced and bettered simply by putting things off for a while. Delays in the process provide the time needed to evaluate options and opportunities while avoiding or adequately managing the risks involved when making thoughtful decisions.

In this scenario, procrastination isn’t about simple avoidance of doing something. Instead, procrastination in the success journey is about providing time for various ideas to be considered along with all of the options, challenges, and solutions that might also be involved. Your approach to a situation will usually be more unique if you give yourself time to consider the options before jumping to the first response you think of. But procrastination in and of itself won’t increase your creativity. What you do in that time you are using for procrastination is what will inspire and enhance your creativity.

People who took a break from doing a task in order to play video games were prone to come up with even better ideas if they continued to keep the task at hand in the back of their thoughts while playing games. One famous procrastinator was the artist Da Vinci, and he was well aware of that fact as it took 15 years to actually produce the famous painting, The Last Supper. The famous speeches I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, were not completed until moments before they were delivered. King even added to his speech in the middle of presenting it.

It is human nature to dismiss the thought of tasks and projects once they are completed. However, unfinished tasks seem to remain in the thought process and open up opportunities for creative thinking on how to complete said tasks. CEOs dealing with challenges and threats to their companies will be more open to new ideas and different ways to solve issues if they allow procrastination to take over for a bit. The CEOs who do not allow that procrastination time and act quickly without much thought will tend to miss opportunities for unexpected growth and development.

Obviously, an entire strategy of procrastination will not lead to ultimate success. Marin Luther King, Jr. developed his speech for over a year while at the same time gaining a working knowledge of public speaking and developing his message as well. While he built the foundation for his fiery speech, he also kept an open mind and was flexible to determining the content right up until the very last minute before he gave it. By putting off the finalization of something through this kind of procrastination, you open the door to potentially powerful improvisation. The most iconic part of King’s speech, the statement “I have a dream!” was not originally a part of his previously prepared speech, yet it has become one of the most powerful phrases in history. When it comes to procrastination, the key is to do so thoughtfully while creating and developing different aspects of the task or project.

Procrastination was even a part of exploring the American West successfully. Eventual settlers who put off moving to the West for a time enjoyed a much greater level of success then did the early pioneers who jumped at the opportunity early on. Early pioneers had the greatest access to unknown western lands, but they also saw the greatest failures in dealing with the challenges of those new lands. Settlers moved much slower and gained immeasurable benefits in learning from what the pioneers had learned the hard way.

Products that are new, innovative, and hurriedly put on the market actually have a 75% failure rate. This is usually because the market they were being sold to was not quite ready for them at the time. The entrepreneurs who get to enjoy successful ventures are ones who have learned to wait when introducing their product. They wait for the right time to do so instead of charging in with a high risk of getting negative exposure that is detrimental to their success. If you are the first one to get your product on the market, you are also the first one to potentially make mistakes with that product. Sometimes being first on the market is part of the plan, and if that’s the case, Grant recommends taking time to ensure your technology has a patent and there is an appropriate network in place to receive your product.

5. Formation of an excellent alliance.

Grant has many suggestions for how to go about creating great alliances. For example, strangers can work better together if they first sing a few well-known songs together. If people do a few things in the same way, common ground is easier to found and enables different people to work well together even when their reasons for doing so are different. Grant reminds us that there is a limit to this kind of collaboration however. Groups also need to employ a variety of working methods in order to teach each other how to do things a little differently and grow in experience. When people share emotions together, it can sometimes make them feel an unusual bond whether those emotions are positive or negative.

The presence of innovative ideas and methods of thinking will attract success and progress. Introducing new ideas to any kind of group gives it opportunities for growth. One of the best ways to introduce new ideas to a group is to collaborate with another group that has slightly lower or higher status in order to provide the most potential for growth.
Sometimes radical ideas that would otherwise be rejected as a whole can be implemented simply by giving various members of the alliance only a small piece the overall information – just enough to complete their part of the project. Once they see their part succeed and watch other small parts succeed, the big, new idea becomes more acceptable. People who might have rejected the entire idea out of hand in the beginning will support its potential in the end this way. Extremely innovative and unusual ideas might need to be downplayed a bit when offered to larger audiences in order to not be rejected in the beginning. This is kind of like the tactic many salespeople employ of merely getting their foot in the door in the beginning of the sales pitch which will lead to a better opportunity to present their sales pitch as a whole. Someone who will agree to buy a small product tends to become more willing to buy larger, more expensive products from the same seller. Alliances, organizations, and ideologies can fall apart if the people involved are not willing to subdue the more radical ideas until the time is appropriate for sharing them.

Grant also explains the need to avoid the whole situation of “frenemies.” Frenemies are those people who are supportive of you and your goals one day, but the next day they are voicing and even leading opposition to your ideas. You actually need to know who your true enemies are and what they are saying about you and your idea. That is much more beneficial than frenemies who change their opinion of you repeatedly and cannot be trusted. Enemies provide a viewpoint that you may not have heard before, and once you honestly resolve issues enemies had with you or your ideas, they might turn into your most trusted advisers and salespeople.

Another tactic to employ during your presentation of new ideas is to offer familiar and comfortable information alongside your new and innovative ideas. For example, those who fought for the suffrage movement did so by extolling the familiar virtue of “protecting the home.” Women in those days were already comfortable with being in the position of protecting their homes, so the temperance movement gained many allies by showing women how their movement continued the principle of protecting the home.

Grant recommends two main strategies for creating an alliance: one, explain how your ideas will actually assist people in fighting for their own values, and two, learn how to express your ideas in a way that fits the audience you are speaking to.

6. The family tree of origins.

Studies show that children born into households with older siblings are generally thought to be risk takers and more likely to rebel against the status quo than first-born children. These children are called laterborns and tend to exhibit more rebellious tendencies than older siblings. Parents generally have two ways to deal with such children. They can either allow them a measure of freedom and give them tools and safe methods for expressing their originality, or they can attempt to stifle that rebellion by removing any freedom of expression. The former method can be dangerous while the later method can stifle creativity and growth. The question then is how to actually use the proclivity for rebellion for the good of the children and their originality without putting them and other people at risk because of dangerous behavior.

Grant recommends parents use discipline closely coupled with reasoning to deal with such children. You don’t want to merely use “right” and “wrong” statements. Instead, use logic to explain the reasons why something is wrong and how doing wrong will hurt other people. Quite often, the people who grow to become strong defenders of weak and disadvantaged people were nurtured by parents who raised them to be focused on family values. They also taught them the importance of personal character more than being focused on obedience, control, and punishment. Most of the people who rescued Holocaust victims differed from the people who silently did nothing because of how their parents raised them. Rescuers were raised with a focus on personal character and values along with a clear respect for all humanity – not just friends and family.

Raising children who have the ability to behave with a great level of ethics and character as adults takes careful thought in the words you choose to use in various teaching moments. Children internalize what you teach them about character, and teaching them not to be a cheater is much more important than just telling them not to cheat.

Beyond parental influence, children also need additional role models. Children will find role models in fictional stories or in their community, but they will find people they admire and want to copy outside of the family unit. The Harry Potter series of books may carry unknown value in influencing many children to have compassion and understanding for those fighting various sorts of discrimination or marginalization.

7. Groupthink thoughts and traits.

By definition, groupthink is pretty much the opposite of uniqueness and creativity. When people do not voice their thoughts and opinions that differ from the norm or the status quo, originality slowly dies. The question is how do you fight against groupthink while also promoting an appropriate alliance? Grant believes this is where the concept of commitment blueprint comes into play. This concept describes having people on the team who can fit in culturally with the other people in the group. This type of team tends to be able to stay together much better than those who don’t fit together culturally. Once you have a team with a similar commitment blueprint, you then need to find a way to keep the commitment strong while also utilizing feedback, opinions, and constructive criticism from people who don’t fit the culture but have necessary and valuable evaluations and perspectives on the primary ideas.

The answer lies in building a culture within the team that will encourage and ask team members to challenge each other and purposely think differently when needed in order to come up with new viewpoints. It also means new team members need to feel comfortable presenting different ideas and methods to the group from the very beginning once they are hired and even beforehand during the interview process.

Grant analyzes Bridgewater which is an investment company that sees loss as well as profit each and every day. The focus of Bridgewater’s culture is keyed in on how employees work with each other and how people are encouraged to be creative and engage in conversations even when they disagree. This focus is for everyone in the company from the CEO down to the newest janitor. The point is, a strong business culture must allow and even encourage respectful disagreement as a key component of the company’s culture. However, the characteristic of just being plain disagreeable is not helpful – the dissent must be appropriate and purposeful in order to be useful. But when said dissent is natural and honest, it will open the way for creativity along with clarity and eventual confidence. Building such an honest culture where dissent is not only accepted but appreciated will in turn create an atmosphere where the tendency to groupthink will be null and void.

Grant also speaks against another common misperception of managers who believe the staff under them should be focused on providing solutions to any presented problems instead of just presenting the challenges that have come up. Instead, Grant believes the focus should actually be on those problems – not solutions. When the problems are thoroughly explored and understood and all ideas critically evaluated, the group will come up with solutions that are clear, thoughtful, and able to stand up against analysis.

8. The emotions of an original.

Being an original person is not easy. At times, you are sure to face anxiety, fear, discouragement, and a host of other unpleasant emotions. Grant offers strategies from Psychologist Julie Norman to use when dealing with emotions – the defensiveness of pessimism and the mindset of an optimist. The main strategy an optimist uses is a tendency to center one’s attention on the best side of things. A pessimist’s defensive nature considers everything that might go wrong and feels negative emotions that will come when things eventually go wrong.

Surprisingly, quite often the defensive pessimists are the ones who actually find the most success. This is probably because they consider what may be the worst outcomes and then try to figure out ways to avoid those worst-case scenarios. They get anxious and stressed out before it is technically time for such emotions, but when those bad times come, they are more than prepared.

Other methods for handling negative emotions is to pretend or act, re-label, or re-frame them. Take fear, for example. Fear can be labeled as excitement. Changing the name of the emotion can change how you respond to it. The outcome in such situations can turn out quite well even when there is just cause to be afraid. Humor can also be used to transform fear. A caricature of a frightful dictator can help reduce one’s fear in speaking up against him because it is hard to be afraid of someone you’re laughing at.

In addition, if you act like or pretend you are not afraid, it can lead to you actually overcoming the negative aspects of fear. Method acting where you take on the character of a powerful persona can help change your own limiting emotions. Reframing the scary situation can also help in managing fear.

If you are dealing with anger, venting that anger is not usually a helpful strategy in the end. Instead, change the way you look at the situation or person that is the perceived source or cause of the anger. Change the focus of your attention away from being angry at someone, and in turn, try to focus on someone else who encourages you to improve the world or system so they can receive justice.

#Closing Thoughts

Core Concepts:

Positive change and momentum for improvement is created through originality in families, communities, and business situations. Originality can be learned at any stage in life, and you can also learn how to inspire others to be original and raise children who are original individuals.

Action Points:

Originality can be increased by appropriate procrastination, requesting feedback, challenging status quo, creating multiple ideas, and looking for new and different situations.

Express your original ideas while also taking care not to offer a “perfect” version of your idea. Voice legitimate reasons to not support the idea you’re expressing which will help the audience be more comfortable with what you’re saying as well as your trustworthiness.

Take advantage of your own emotions by setting your focus on improving the status quo, choosing what motivates you, focusing your anger on being for something instead of against, and reframing or re-labeling fear.
Utilize your place as a leader by welcoming challenges and criticism, including every employee in the creative process of coming up with ideas along with evaluation, supporting people in playing the role of “devil’s advocate”, and encouraging activities in creativity.

When raising children, place your focus on family values, encourage your children to find appropriate role models, and help them develop empathy and the ability to realize how their actions affect other people.

Facts About the Author

Adam Grant is a prolific writer who has written many best-selling books and popular articles on the topics of motivation and success. He is broadly respected and well known by everyone he interacted with as a professor at Wharton School and throughout the CEOs in Silicon Valley. Find out more about him at adamgrant.net.

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