Originals

How Non-Conformists Move the World

By: Adam Grant, Sheryl Sandberg - foreword

Narrated by: Fred Sanders, Susan Denaker

Length: 10 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

Start the new year with the number one New York Times best seller that examines how people can champion new ideas - and how leaders can fight groupthink, from the author of Give and Take and co-author of Option B.

“Reading Originals made me feel like I was seated across from Adam Grant at a dinner party, as one of my favorite thinkers thrilled me with his insights and his wonderfully new take on the world.” (Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and The Tipping Point)

“Originals is one of the most important and captivating books I have ever read, full of surprising and powerful ideas. It will not only change the way you see the world; it might just change the way you live your life. And it could very well inspire you to change your world.” (Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In)

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becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions.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 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.

©2016 Adam Grant (P)2016 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

"Reading Originals made me feel like I was seated across from Adam Grant at a dinner party, as one of my favorite thinkers thrilled me with his insights and his wonderfully new take on the world." (Malcolm Gladwell, number-one New York Times best-selling author of Outliers and The Tipping Point)

" Originals is one of the most important and captivating books I have ever read, full of surprising and powerful ideas. It will not only change the way you see the world; it might just change the way you live your life. And it could very well inspire you to change your world." (Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook and number-one New York Times best-selling author of Lean In)

Read before listening

Fast forward to the last 20 minutes. I found the summary of conclusions to be as valuable as the entire book. The rest is just a collection of history, studies, and quotes from others. Not terrible, but I already knew most of it. Also, this can be listened to at 1.5x +.

Long winded

I felt like the author tried really hard to prove his points and even through the chapters seems to go back and forth from previous stories told.
Oh, because he shares stories pretty much. I feel like it would make a very good blog post but a very long winded book. I've read other books and this one was hard to complete. I found myself skipping, and trust me I've read some really long boring history books hat somehow kept me reading/listening more than this one

Interesting, but not science

I appreciated learning about a company that seriously promotes dissenting opinions as well as social science experiments. Setting up the tests themselves are intersting ideas, but the audio book never mentions the sample sizes or if any experiments have been able to recreate results, so you don't know how real the implications are.

He deals with how relatively little decisions are made where the main gist is to get people to just be more open minded and less dogmatic. I would have found it much more interesting if he analyzed decision making in war where people die based on your decisions.

The book is misnamed. He doesn't define what is original or give a framework to discuss it. He takes a lot of successful people and goes backward to see how they got there implying that they are an Original because they are successful. I would get a lot more out of the author pointing out unsuccessful Originals.

Still, it's interesting to hear about successful people in a casual way. It's better use of time than reading People magazine.

Nothing novel

Feel like I just heard Outliers by M Gladwell again. No real new ideas. Seemed like a laundry list of examples.

How can anyone think this is boring?

If your a fan of Malcolm Gladwell you'll love this book. I was reading the 48 laws of power, and I found that boring. I find books that tell stories from before the 1920 boring and inapplicable to my life. You can learn so much from this book. Invest in yourself, learn, and hear some kick ass stories that make you question what direction they will take. I also love how they mention blockbuster, as I just finished a Blockbuster video on my YouTube channel, the url is Adrianvsjak.

Very boring (reader)

Not a bad book but makes me want to sleep.
From the beginning it was so boring

A dull summary of psychology papers

This is just an incessant stream of research summary. Study after study, percentage after percentage, tied together with dry story telling.

A gold mine for the survey junky

I find this book very valuable for me in my work as a business coach. The author shares many good ideas that I like and work to implement in businesses. The book contains results of a large amount of studies done by the author and others. I appreciate that as it strengthen my arguments.

Boring!

What disappointed you about Originals?

I wanted to like this but its just not interesting. The examples drag on and just sound like a bunch of boring stories. I made it about half way through then started skipping ahead, it didn't get any better.

Fantastic book to revaluate your approach

it will help a lot entrepreneurs, parents, HRs and everybody who take it in hands.