In Originals, Adam Grant explains how non-conformists move the world. When they are actively engaged in change initiatives, the strongest resistance encountered will probably be cultural in nature, the result of what James O’Toole so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.” Those who defend the status quo are probably among those who struggled to replace the previous status quo.

Here is a selection of Grant’s perspectives on disruptive creativity.

o “Years ago, psychologists discovered that there are two routes to achievement: conformity and originality. Conformity means following the crowd down conventional paths and maintaining the status quo. Originality is taking the road less traveled, championing a set of novel ideas that go against the grain but ultimately make things better.” (Page 3)

o “When assessing the prospects of a novel idea, it’s all too easy to be seduced by the enthusiasm of the people beyond it. In the words of Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, ‘Passionate people don’t wear their passion on their sleeve; they have it in their hearts.'” (55) Note: Thomas Edison was genuinely passionate about ideas, to be sure, but reminds us, “Vision without execution is hallucination.”

o “Ray Dalio doesn’t want employees to bring him solutions; he expects them to bring him problems. One of his first inventions was the issue log, an open-access database for employees to flag any problem they identify and rate its severity. Getting problems noted is is half the battle against groupthink; the other is listening to the right opinions about how to solve them. The Bridgewater procedure for the latter is to gather a group of credible people to diagnose the problems, share their reasoning, and explore the causes and possible solutions…Although everyone’s opinions are welcome, Bridgewater is not a democracy.” (199)

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Adam Grant is Wharton’s top-rated teacher. He has been recognized as one of HR’s most influential international thinkers, BusinessWeek‘s favorite professors, the world’s 40 best business professors under 40, and Malcolm Gladwell’s favorite social science writers. Grant was tenured at Wharton while still in his twenties and has been honored with the Excellence in Teaching Award for every class he has taught. His first book, Give and Take, was a New York Times bestseller translated into twenty-seven languages and named one of the best books of 2013 by Amazon, Apple, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal–as well as one of Oprah’s riveting reads, Fortune‘s must-read business books, Harvard Business Review‘s ideas that shaped management, and the Washington Post‘s books every leader should read. His speaking and consulting clients include Google, the NFL, Merck, Goldman Sachs, Disney Pixar, the United Nations, and the U.S. Army and Navy. He serves as a contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times and was profiled in a cover story by its magazine. Grant earned his Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan and his B.A. from Harvard. He is a former junior Olympic springboard diver and magician.

Originals was published by Viking/Penguin Random House (2016).