11 1/2 Weird Ideas that Work is a good book to read along with The Art of Innovation. The ideas are things that will foster innovation and creativity at your organization. The author presents his counter intuitive ideas and then explains the rational for each of them. He uses examples to show how they work. One idea was to higher people who make you uncomfortable because it will increase the diversity and viewpoints in your company. Another idea is to use job interviews to get new ideas and find novel solutions to problems.
If you are looking to spark innovation this book has some good ideas, but most of them go against established practices. I guess that is kind of the definition of innovation though--doing things differently than everyone else.
Productive New Concepts
This is a wonderful but dangerous book. The 11 and 1/2 weird ideas it contains are terrific, exciting and slippery. Use them right and you could transform your company into a hotbed of innovation. Use them wrong and you could also transform your company into a disorganized mess. Author Robert I. Sutton clearly explains that some situations do not require innovation - that they are, in fact, terrible settings for new things. Companies focus on the routine for an extremely logical reason: it makes money now. Identifying situations that can make money with routine work versus circumstances that require change is a tough distinction, particularly since innovation requires many failures, disrupts your culture and forces you to take a rough look into the future. We thus recommend this book to a select group: those who know their fields and organizations extremely well. If you can see clearly through both the current jargon that promotes innovation and your organization's often unspoken prejudices, you will find this book exciting and extremely productive.
Not so weird ideas for innovation labeled weirdly
This book is a useful and fun read. It offers some solid ideas for innovation but the ideas are labeled in order to draw attention. For instance, the first idea is, "Hire "slow learners"", however the intention behind this is just hire stubborn people who are unaffected by others opinions and norms. These people will go against the standards and breed creativity. Another idea is "Find some happy people and make them fight" with the basic idea behind this technique being get optimistic people, who are naturally more creative. Put them in a room together and let them bounce ideas together until a new and improved idea is created.
Another thing to be prepared for with this book is that the ideas all go against commonly accepted business practices. That is because the ideas are admittedly not for present success but calculated and proven risks for future innovation. So anyone interested in changing their business and preparing to get an edge on competitors in the future will benefit from this book.
Very useful - full of a dozen great ideas
Choose your favourite weird (or not so weird) idea. I found about 20 in the end.My favourites include :
- reward success & failure - punish inaction;
- forget the past, especially your successes;
- encourage people to ignore/defy superiors;
- hire people who are stubborn;
- focus on abandoning failing ideas more quickly, rather than try to reduce the failure rate.