Monday, July 7, 2014

Readings of 2014, June Edition

As you may have noticed, the title does not have a "Part x" element. That is because I slacked off this past month and only finished 1 book. Fail.

The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley:

The most common role played during meetings in large companies: Devil's Advocate.

In this book, Tom Kelley points out how the Devil's Advocate is a dangerous role to be played, as well as introduces us to 10 roles that are much more beneficial to organizations. Not going to go over all 10 of the roles, but will go over the ones that I found particularly interesting.

First up is the Experimenter. I find the Experimenter role particularly interesting primarily because it is the role that I feel closest aligned to. The Experimenter has to be willing to take risks, and be able to fuck stuff up over and over without taking it personally when things don't turn out how they expected(if there is even an expectation of the experiment). The quintessential Experimenter, Thomas Edison, is credited with what can most accurately sum up the Experimenter's role, "I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work."

Next we have the Cross-Pollinator. The primary strength of a Cross-Pollinator is their ability to apply lessons that they have learned in one endeavor to something that is seemingly unrelated. I commonly find myself drawing analogies among cooking, software development, lifting, and the meaning of life, so relating to the Cross-Pollinator role was far from a stretch for me.

Finally, we have the Storyteller role. I love this role, not because I find it a strength, but because I am extremely envious of those who do. Being a great Storyteller can strengthen pretty much any role; a realtor who can more effectively paint a picture of the potential in a house, an engineer can more effectively communicate painpoints in a project, and comedians can suck their audience in(Dane Cook isn't the funniest comedian in the world, but he is second-to-none in his role as Storyteller).

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