The #1 national bestseller that examines how people can champion new ideas—and how leaders can fight groupthink With Give and Take, Adam Grant not only introduced a landmark new paradigm for success but also established himself as one of his generation’s most compelling and provocative thought leaders. In Originals he again addresses the challenge of improving the world, but now from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all? Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can fight groupthink to build cultures that welcome dissent. Learn from an entrepreneur who pitches his start-ups by highlighting the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who overturned the rule of secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees for failing to criticize him, and a TV executive who didn’t even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor. The payoff is a set of groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and improving the status quo. Reviews: “Adam Grant is a serious social scientist, master storyteller and infectious optimist…. The counterintuitive insight at the core of Originals is not just that conventional forms of achievement are less socially useful. It is that the alternative, originality, can and should be taught and nurtured…. The book’s primary preoccupation is to provide practical tools to ’unleash’ the hidden creativity in all of us. These relate not just to our own self-improvement, but to how we can ’build cultures of originality’ both at home and at work…. Mr. Grant has an uncanny ability to infuse a familiar topic with deeper meaning and leave the reader feeling hopeful and a little exhilarated.” —Jonathan A. Knee, The New York Times “[Grant] examines what successful non-conformists—from the woman behind wireless power company uBeam to the founder of online eyeglass company Warby Parker—have in common, all in an effort to help the rest of us learn how to do things like bust myths, speak truth to power and avoid groupthink without getting sidelined.” —Jena McGregor, The Washington Post About the Author: Adam Grant is Wharton’s top-rated teacher. He has been recognized as one of HR’s most influential international thinkers, BusinessWeek’s favorite professor, one of the world’s forty best business professors under forty. Grant was tenured at Wharton while still in his twenties and has been honored with the Excellence in Teaching Award for every class he has taught. His speaking and consulting clients include Google, the NFL, Merck, Goldman Sachs, Disney Pixar, the United Nations, and the U.S. Army and Navy. He serves as a contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times and was profiled in a cover story by its magazine. Grant earned his Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan and his B.A. from Harvard College. |