Fail Fast and Fail Forward

I just finished reading an interesting book by Peter Sims entitled Little Bets.  The book provides some fascinating insights about the true origins of innovation.  The author extensively studied the techniques of popular artists such as Chris Rock, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Jeff Bezos to better understand how they approach development of new ideas.  Sims demonstrates in the book that many great innovators do not achieve success by placing all their hopes in one big bet nor do they try develop elaborate plans to hit narrow targets on unknown horizons.  Instead these innvotors place a series of little bets, or “concrete actions taken to discover, test and develop ideas that are achievable and affordable.”  Sims maintains that while only a few people in the world are true prodigies, it is possible for anyone to use “little bets” to unlock creative ideas.