It has been one of the most impactful books I've read in quite awhile. It's not that what it focused on what so revolutionary. It's not that the ideas are so remarkable. But what made this so powerful was that it - strictly through happenstance - actually ties together so much of what I've been reading over the past few years: Sarah Lewis (Rise), Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point), Howard Schutlz (Onward), Simon Sinek (Start With Why), Tony Wagner (Creating Innovators), and Seth Godin (The Dip and The Icharus Deceptions) to name just a few.
Sims' main focus in this book, as the title suggests, is that real innovations and breakthroughs occur when people try a variety of things, rather than putting all of their efforts into a single, grand experiment. Now, of course, this is not a universal truth. But for many inventors and thinkers today (and even in the past) the real innovations come after dozens and dozens (if not hundreds) of small trial and error experiments and tasks.
Guy Kawasaki, in Enchantment, talks about how you have to plant a hundred different seeds rather than putting all of your time and resources and effort into lavishing over one single seed. This idea is at the heart of Sims' book.
Sims gives several prominent examples of how this pays off - Pixar (which originally started out as a special effects computer company and only produced small animated films as a way of showing off what their computers were capable of creating. Yet, through all of Pixar's little bets (namely through the work of Ed Catmull), they were able to eventually produce Toy Story . . . and the rest is history); The US military (which shifted its tactics in Iraq from a massive overall effort to find and eliminate insurgents to making a number of small bets by taking a "worm's eye view" of what it means to live in the major cities in Iraq by meeting with religious and social leaders and even going from house to house, to win over the residents, who previously had been more likely to support insurgents . . . even though all of that hard work is going down the tubes now that we are withdrawing and the religious extremists are taking back over); comedian Chris Rock (who before one of his HBO specials or a tour will spends weeks in small clubs trying out his new material. He will pause mid-joke and jot down reactions and even think out loud as he is workshopping the material); architect Frank Gehry (who doesn't start with a grand design for his iconic buildings ahead of time. Instead Gehry develops them and their designs making small bets to see what will work and what won't); and Starbuck's Howard Schultz (initially he modeled the first Starbucks after actual Italian Espresso bars . . . no menus, the baristas wore bow ties, no chairs . . . nothing like what Starbucks eventually became because of all the little bets Schultz made that didn't work out and all of the small bets he was able to make to deal with the failures).
Another favorite part of Little Bets was Sims' focus on the work of Stanford Psychologist Carol Dweck. Dweck is a proponent of what is referred to as "the growth mindset."
What Dweck discovered through years of research is that people tend to view their talents and their ability to learn in one of two ways - either with a "fixed mindset" where you believe every person is born with a set IQ and natural talents or with a "growth mindset" where you believe that IQ is fine but work ethic is more important than anything.
Diane Ravitch talked about this in a podcast I heard a few years ago. She pointed out that this is the key difference between US students and Asian students. In America our kids (and us too) try to get by on talent alone. How many times have you said or heard a student say, "Well, I'm just not good at math" or "I just can't write"? The difference in China is that parents don't start with that. Their attitude is that their kids will work as long and hard as it takes in order for them to become good at math or to write well.
Dweck finds that leaders and thinkers and entrepreneurs with the "growth mindset" accomplish far more than others with a "fixed mindset." Perhaps this is why the average GPA of an America deca-millionaire is 2.0. They realize that their IQ doesn't matter; what matters is that they're willing to get to work immediately on what they are interested in. And they just get to work right away on that.
Unfortunately, our schools aren't always set up to reward "the growth mindset." After all, you don't get a grade on your effort. You only get a grade on showing what you have mastered through memorizing and applying (the latter, if you're lucky).
Here are some of my favorite lines from Little Bets -
"We're taught to be linear thinkers - to follow - pre-established procedures and plans - in a nonlinear world." I love that. The old way of doing things (the huge production line way of producing products) does not work like it once did. So the only way to survive is to adapt and grow and think outside of the box. As Sims notes, ". . . we cannot rely on past assumptions to predict the future. In this era, being able to create, navigate amid uncertainty, and adapt will increasingly be vital advantages."
Sims also looks at the importance of failure or as he refers to it, as failing forward . . . "The faster they fail, the faster they will discover promising opportunities." But you have to be able to accept failure. And coincidentally, Dweck finds that those with a "fixed mindset" don't handle failure very well at all. They tend to see it as an attack on themselves. And why shouldn't they given their perspective on having fixed talents? However, a person with a "growth mindset" is able to handle failure much better because they know that through hard work, you're bound to experience failure. Where growth occurs is when you deal with the failure you've encountered. As Dweck observes, "'The bottom line is that the fixed mindset makes it hard to maintain confidence because difficulty, effort, and other people who are perceived to be better all pose threats. But, in a growth mind-set, the same things are opportunities.'"
Sims actually does address education later in the book. He writes, "What is the purpose of education? Is it to impart knowledge and facts or is it to nurture curiosity, effortful problem solving, and the capacity for lifelong learning? . . . 'Very few schools teach students how to create knowledge . . . Instead, students are taught that knowledge is static and complete, and they become experts at consuming knowledge rather than producing knowledge.'" I love that idea - getting students to produce knowledge rather than just consume it. But do I do enough of this? Do I do any of that?
Here is another great line, this one about Pixar, "'The measure is how we respond to the crises as they happen. We have to be comfortable being uncomfortable."
Overall, I try and apply this to how I teach. I'm a living example of little bets, for that is exactly how I teach. My entire curriculum is liquid. It's not static. What that means is that it constantly changes and adapts and morphs depending on my students. For example, one of the best things I've ever done in my classes is what I call the Sticky-Note Book report. I learned of this from a colleague of mine at the Red River Valley Writers Workshop. So I thought I'd test it out (making a small bet) in my second semester College Comp 2 class. I ask the students to fill out a note card listing three subjects/topics they are very interested in reading and learning more about. Then I ask them to give me two subjects/topics that they absolutely do not want to read about. From that list, I select a nonfiction text for them to read. Then they put 50 various Sticky-Notes in it as they read to illustrate their engagement with the text. Then they write a research paper on it and give a book talk to the class.
That was fine, but I wanted to tweak it (again, making a small bet) by having them write instead of traditional research paper, a hyper-text essay. Through more small bets, this morphed into having students create a blog around their specific book and put their essays on that.
This has worked very, very well. However, last semester, the book talks the students gave at the conclusion of the unit were so stellar, I made yet another small bet and asked the class if they'd like to try a second sticky-note book report given how well they responded to their peers' book talks. Without question, the class was up for it. So we did a second round.
If I was a "fixed mindset" teacher, making such changes on the fly would be impossible. But for me, it's the only way I can teach effectively.
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