Not enough actionable ideas

It is an interesting book but seems to be more of a collection of interesting stories than actionable items. The narration was excellent. It is entertaining but I was looking for more of a how to experience.

8 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Thought - provoking and full of practic insights.

Highly engaging. I recommend this book to those who want to learn about their world, their business, their relationships.

The author tells the story of how he approached his study of insights, - - a story which was itself full of insights into unpacking insights from events.

He didn't just tell what he learned... He explained his path. He told a story of his study. In doing so, he drew me into his search in a way that a mere report of his final results could never do.

It was a pleasure to listen to. I intend to buy several hard copies... One for myself, one for my boss, and one for each of several colleagues.

In our office, we are struggling to capture insights and drive practical lessons to shape our work. The organization is pushing to standardize processes, reduce error, and increase predictability. I'm concerned that we will stifle our ability to learn from our projects in the drive for perfection.

The author addresses exactly this phenomenon.

We aren't doing a very good job of balancing the natural forces that seek perfection with the freedom to innovates , but if we can apply the author's framework, I'm certain we'll have a much better chance at doing both well.

I read his previous book on rapid decision-making. It too is a masterful study that opens the mind to a richer understanding of that field. I recommend both books.

I don't know the author but I am moved to engage him in conversation.

5 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

felt like I was listening the same thing all over

I like all his insight stories and his analysis of each story. But his explanation is too tedious and repetitive.
I was waiting the whole book for the moment he would finally say how we can really trigger insights, but as this question has no answer he just gave us many stories for us to figure out by ourselves. I think my expectations were too high for the end of the book and I got really sad when it suddenly ended with no clear answer. I enjoyed and had fun with all his little cases and stories, and I definitely learned something from listening. But my feeling when it ended was a feeling of "really? is that all? I listened to the same stories over and over again for nothing?"
I just think he could had explained the same things in a much shorter book.

4 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Valuable for leading a project

Good book for managers and project-driven professions.

It helps you have breakthroughs in your thinking. The author analyzed 130 insights to see what led the person to discovery - was it creativity, seeing connections, spotting a contradiction? He goes through many of these stories (good, so you can recognize similar situations in your own life, but also boring, like he's doing a book report on many life incidents and also referring back to them). This caused the book to become boring at times. Helpful, but boring. I felt like I was listening for professional development's sake, not because it was also a fun listen.

I definitely had a few takeaways from this book. One is the idea of the "up arrow and down arrow." We focus too much on not making mistakes, without rewarding riskier efforts to improve our situation. That improves our current situation, but doesn't allow room for advancement. Encouraging creative improvements will improve a business, even if the new ventures and products result in a few kinks that need ironing out in the future.

2 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Very informative

Loving innovation and usefulness, this really helped to get a better understanding in gaining insights, and what not to do.

Very Insightful!

Will show you whether you have it in you to be insightful or not; and how to capture the moment!

Glad I chose this book!

Very thoughtfully written and A+ quality insights! Every Chapter provided value added insights to my knowledge base.

good stories, mediocre storytelling

about 80% of these stories are business school cliche stories, so is likely the reader has already heard them. furthermore, other tellings of these stories (for example the firefighters) are more detailed and more interesting. that said, I think all of the stories are important.

the thread that tied the stories together (how to innovate) was interesting, but was not itself all that innovative

Too many stories

normally, stories help me remember details by tying lessons to an allegory. in this case, the author provides so many stories from military history science and personal experience that it became too difficult to recall the stories or their key points.

Severely repetitive and over explanatory

The author continually explains the same points over and over throughout the book. It gets monotonous and boring very quickly.