This blogpost is not an exhaustive summary of the book. Just contains the notes I took.

TO STAY FOCUSED

• Envision what will happen. What will occur first? What are potential obstacles? How will you preempt them? Telling yourself a story about what you expect to occur makes it easier to decide where your focus.

TO MAKE BETTER DECISIONS

• Envision multiple futures. By pushing yourself to imagine various possibilities.

• We can hone our Bayesian instincts by seeking out different experiences, perspectives, and other people’s ideas. By finding information and then letting ourselves sit with it, options become clearer.

TO MAKE TEAMS MORE EFFECTIVE

• Manage the how, not the who of teams. Psychological safety emerges when everyone feels like they can speak in roughly equal measure and when teammates show they are sensitive to how each other feel.

• If you are leading a team, think about the message your choices reveal. Are you encouraging equality in speaking, or rewarding the loudest people? Are you showing you are listening by repeating what people say and replying to questions and thoughts? Are you demonstrating sensitivity by reacting when someone seems upset or flustered?

TO MANAGE OTHERS PRODUCTIVELY

• Lean and agile management techniques tell us employees work smarter and better when they believe they have more decisionmaking authority and when they believe their colleagues are committed to their success.

• By pushing decision making to whoever is closest to a problem, managers take advantage of everyone’s expertise and unlock innovation.

• A sense of control can fuel motivation, but for that drive to produce insights and solutions, people need to know their suggestions won’t be ignored and that their mistakes won’t be held against them.

TO ENCOURAGE INNOVATION

• Creativity often emerges by combining old ideas in new ways—and “innovation brokers” are key. To become a broker yourself and encourage brokerage within your organization.

• Be sensitive to your own experiences. Paying attention to how things make you think and feel is how we distinguish clichés from real insights.