Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries

Applying the science of phase transitions to the behavior of teams, companies, or any group with a mission provides practical rules for nurturing loonshots faster and better.

Many companies, however, especially when faced with a crisis, try to legislate creativity and innovation everywhere (“The CEO must be the CIO—the Chief Innovation Officer!”). This usually results in chaos, the top-left quadrant. Not every phone operator has to be a champion innovator. Sometimes you just need them to answer the phone.

Early aircraft radar, for example, was practically useless; pilots ignored it. Bush made sure that pilots went back to the scientists and explained why they weren’t using it. The reason had nothing to do with the technology: pilots in the heat of battle didn’t have time to fiddle with the complicated switches on the early radar boxes. The user inte

Manage the transfer, not the technology

“No division, department, branch or group can be either ignored or favored at the expense of the others without unbalancing the whole.”

Love your artists and soldiers equally

Loose goals and dream sessions might help artists. But they will harm the coherence of an army.

“You can’t say … well, I’m getting behind on invention, so I’m going to schedule myself for three good ideas on Wednesday and two on Friday.”

The goal of phase separation is to create a loonshot nursery. The nursery protects those embryonic projects. It allows caregivers to design a sheltered environment where those projects can grow, flourish, and shed their warts.