Bob Sutton has become one of my favorite management book authors. This particular book – Weird Ideas That Work – How to Build a Creative Company – deals, as the subject suggests, with some more practical advice on how to build a creative and innovative workplace. It’s a relatively straightforward book in the sense that the bulk of the book consists of 11½ ideas in 12 chapters that many, especially the more conservative managers, may find weird.
How weird? Well, Sutton tells you, for example, to:
- Hire people who make you uncomfortable, even those you dislike
- Encourage people to ignore and defy superiors and peers
- Find some happy people and get them to fight
- Avoid, distract and bore customers, critics and anyone who just wants to talk about money
- Don’t try to learn anything from people who seem to have solved the problems you face
Just how weird they are depends on your point of view. In any case, unless you’ve studied innovation processes more, at least some are likely to come off as somewhat strange and counter-intuitive. However, as also stated in the title, the ideas work; there is extensive literature and research to support these ideas. While much of the actual research can be found via the references, Sutton does give plenty of examples where possible and appropriate.
One important thing to keep in mind when reading – and especially when implementing – the advice in this book is that it’s meant as helpful stuff for creative or innovative companies. You do not – I repeat DO NOT – want to implement these things in a place that needs rigid adherence to a standard process or extreme repeatability. What’s also worth bearing in mind is that while the result is likely a more innovative company, it will not be the kind of place all people enjoy working in. It will also mean, with high likelihood, that you fail more. While that may sound bad, it’s only natural because a high success rate means you’re probably not very innovative. I quote a quote of James March from the book:
Unfortunately, the gains for imagination are not free. The protections for imagination are indiscriminate. They shield bad ideas as well as good ones – and there are many more of the former than the latter. Most fantasies lead us astray, and most of the consequences of imagination for individuals and individual organizations are disastrous. Most deviants end up on the scrap pile of failed mutations, not heroes of organizational transformation.
How about the downsides of the book itself? Well, having read quite a bit on innovation, many case studies easily get repetitive. I for one am getting tired of hearing the same examples over and over again; for example, whenever the best innovative companies are discussed, there is IDEO. There’s also 3M and the stories of microreplication and Post-It notes. Other ubiquitous companies are Apple, IBM and Intel. Don’t get me wrong; they’re all great companies that make for inspiring examples, but enough is enough.
Overall Weird Ideas That Work is a wonderful book that’s a quick and interesting read. What I particularly liked is that it’s comparatively down-to-earth in the sense that there is plenty of actually implementable advice in the book, not just some kind of ethereal ideas. While an analytical person might hope for some more proof that these ideas actually do work, with enough background information you realize that they in fact are highly likely to work. But again with the caveat that you should only try these if you want to increase innovation in your company or unit and are also prepared to deal with the negative consequences. But as they say, “no pain, no gain”.
As a summary I can highly recommend this book to at least 95% of the companies who claim to be innovative (and these days, who doesn’t?) – but fall far short of a actually being truly innovative.
