This book had an impact on me this week and needless to say, I recommend it. In my first reading, it was not the main message of the book that sparked my interest. It was the parallel path it runs with PDCA and the importance of sampling or pilot programs that so many of us seem to forget. The explosion of Lean in areas of Software, Entrepreneurship, Healthcare and Self-Improvement for example may be disguised under, Agile, Lean Startup, Kanban and Scrum for example. But it seems to me, it still is simply PDCA. As Taiichi Ohno would say: “We find a problem, We fix a problem, We get better.”
- Sunday: Peter Sims, author of Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries
recommends Adapt.
- Monday: I pre-order book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure.
- Tuesday: Discuss podcast with the author, Tim Harford.
- Wednesday: Receive the book and start reading.
- Thursday: Robbed a headline (that means inspiration) from it for a blog post.
- Friday: Get my money back and more on a poker tip from it.
- Saturday: Blog and post video about it.
- Sunday: Starting to re-read it.
Adapt is a highly readable, even entertaining, argument against top-down design. It debunks the Soviet-Harvard command-and-control style of planning and approach to economic policies and regulations and vindicates trial and error (particularly the error part) as a means to economic and general progress. Very impressive!” —Nassim N. Taleb, Distinguised Professor of Risk Engineering, NYU-Poly Institute and author of The Black Swan
I am amazed that in this day and age not that people are still selling marketing books, packages and webinars based on predictable outcomes but that people are still buying them. From an Amazon review of the book: Adapting is the key to success and the key to adapting is: Try new things, try them in a context where failure is survivable and learn how to react to the failures we do encounter. A very enjoyable read with lots of great lessons.
Enjoy the book.
Related Information:
Improve your Sales Cycle, Work on your Feedback Loops
The Little PDCA Sales Loop
The Role of PDCA in a Lean Sales and Marketing Cycle
Why Lean Marketing – the 5th P of Marketing