The creative power of misfits

The story of Pixar and The Incredibles—creating animated humans when no one had done it well before. As the story goes, when the movie didn't come out as expected, Brad Bird recruited the "black sheep" of Pixar, people who were unhappy with the status quo. Brad Bird I want people who are disgruntled because they have a better way of doing things an... See more

Adam's notes Research shows that the kind of frustration he harnessed can fuel creativity. In other words, the curmudgeons on your team could be great untapped resources.

Caveats to the "Underdog Strategy" When a really credible person tells you you can't succeed, in some sense, you basically internalize those expectations, your confidence drops, you actually believe them, and you don't perform as successfully. On the other hand, when you receive low expectations from someone who's not seen as credible, you perceive... See more

Adam Grant and Samir Nurmohamed Grant shows how Brad bird united his team by rallying against a common enemy. The enemy in this case was the outside expectation that they would fail. Samir Nurmohamed expands on this with Adam: In a study with job seekers who had faced discrimination in their careers, Samir randomly assigned some of them to tell a s... See more

Ben Kohlmann Ben wrote an essay for a military news site. He explained his frustration and challenged the Navy to start supporting and promoting junior people with disruptive ideas.

Lisa Bodell's executive exercise to "Kill your own company" I challenged each of those groups to identify who their number one competitor was. And then I said, "Pretend you're that competition. Pretend you have that hat on. I want you to put yourself out of business." I mean -- the room lit on fire. They were so excited, because I gave them permiss... See more