I am reading a book called Weird Ideas That Work by Robert I. Sutton. Professor Sutton from Stanford is a unique voice with an urgent message about how to generate and capitalize on new ides. Since I count myself as an entrepreneurial person, I loved few ideas and want to share them with you. The book has 3 major parts; Why the weird ideas work, the weird ideas and putting the weird ideas to work. I did not like all of the weird ideas in this book and i am a little skeptical about some of them. But, still want to share few of my notes with you. If you are interested in management and innovation, I strongly recommend you to read this book.
Weird Ideas;
1- Hire slow learners
2- Hire people who make you uncomfortable, even those you dislike
3- Hire people you do not need
4- Encourage people to ignore and defy superiors and peers
5- Find some happy people and get them to fight
6- Reward success and failure, punish inaction
7- Decide to do something that you will probably fail, then convince yourself and everyone else that success is certain
8- Think of some ridiculous or impractical things to do, then plan to do them
9- Avoid, distract and bore customers, critics and anyone who just wants to talk about money
10- Dont try to learn anything from people who seems to have solved the problems you face
11- Forget the past, especially your company’s success
I personally did not like the weird idea 3 and 8. But these are for companies where innovation is a way of life. We can not apply these weird ideas in large and established companies. After all, the book is a breakthrough in management thinking, “weird ideas” can help organizations achieve a balance between sustaining performance and fostering new ideas. As a final message; to succeed, you need to be both conventional and weird.
I like Idea 7 – Makes sense to me