Little Bets – How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries

This week’s Resource Recommendation is Little Bets — How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries by Peter Sims.

This book was recommended to me by Tim Sanders during a teleseminar I hosted last month for our Remarkable Leadership Learning System Members and a few guests.   When I received my copy a few days later, I opened it, and while I had other work to do, read for 20 minutes before I even realized it.

As I read more on my vacation, I was as captured as I was by the first few minutes.  This book talks about an important skill for organizations and individuals – creativity and innovation – but comes at it with data and examples that tell readers that you don’t have to hit home runs, but rather to keep swinging at new ideas.

This approach will lead to foul balls and some strike outs, but the small failures and mistakes will continually move you closer towards ideas that will score for you and your organization.

While this idea isn’t new, Sims provides compelling information, stories and research to help us think about this important idea.  Perhaps more importantly, he helps us get through the mental challenges of the failures and mistakes.  For me personally, the chapter on The Growth Mindset made the rest of the book more applicable and helpful.

That chapter alone makes the book worth reading for every leader in every organization; it contains research and insights that will help you far beyond the confines of creativity and innovation.

Overall, this book ranks in the top five of books I’ve read so far this year – it is concise, helpful, well written, and helps the leader become more knowledgeable and effective in the area of creativity – both for themselves and those they lead.