Little Bets: How breakthrough ideas emerge from small discoveries

To launch these big new businesses, the company’s managers took rigorously logical steps. They worked on numerous initiatives in large, growing markets that were adjacent to or somewhat related to HP’s existing business. However, they only looked at opportunities that were already billion dollar markets. Barnholt recalls, “Around that time, people

This correlation between being open to experience and creativity is, in fact, one of the most prominent findings that threads throughout the creativity research.

“For instance, they were taught how to be more open to opportunities around them, how to break routines, and how to deal with bad luck by imagining things being worse.” Wiseman included exercises to increase chance opportunities, such as building and maintaining a network of luck, being open to new experiences, and developing a more relaxed attitud

his distinctive style of architecture.

Elaborating on the benefits of small wins, Weick writes, “Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win.” One

would hear people say was that they would do something new—take an unconventional career path or start a company—but that they needed a great idea first.

Healthy insecurity is the same phrase Gehry uses to describe how he feels when he begins each new project. “I’m always scared that I’m not going to know what to do,” Gehry says. “It’s a terrifying moment.

do things to discover what they should do.

Even when we are taught problem solving, such as solving math problems, the focus is generally either on using established methods or logical inference or deduction, both highly procedural in the way they require us to think. There is much less emphasis on developing our creative thinking abilities, our abilities to let our minds run imaginatively