MAIN IDEA
After interviewing more than 200 entrepreneurs who have started companies which generate more than $100 million in revenue or which serve more than 100,000 people, it was found there are six skills which make creators successful:
FIND THE GAP
DRIVE FOR DAYLIGHT
USE THE OODA LOOP
FAIL WISELY
NETWORK MINDS
GIFT SMALL GOODS
The undeniable conclusion is creators are not born that way – they learn, apply and then pass on these six skills to their teams. The six skills are also highly collaborative – they feed on each other to create synergy and momentum.
"No special expertise is required to master the six skills. You don’t need credentials or degrees. The ability to turn ideas into enduring enterprises is available to anyone willing to learn and work. Although everyone has strengths in certain skills and weaknesses in others, the more we exercise and increase our proficiency in each, the more we will be able to make the most of every opportunity."
– Amy Wilkinson
"When a creator brings together all six skills, something magnetic occurs. Creators attract allies—employees, customers, investors, and collaborators of all kinds. Customers become evangelists. Employees turn into loyalists. Investors back the company with support that transcends financial returns."
– Amy Wilkinson
AMY WILKINSON is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She is also a strategic advisor, entrepreneur and keynote speaker. She advises both startups and large corporations on innovation and business strategy. She has worked at McKinsey & Company, J.P. Morgan and as the founder of an export company. She has served as a White House Fellow in the office of the United States Trade Representative and as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. Amy Wilkinson is a graduate of Stanford University.
The author's website is at www.AmyWilkinson.com.
This is a summary and not a critique or a review of the book. It does not offer judgment or opinion on the content of the book. This summary may not be organized chapter-wise but is an overview of the main ideas, view points and arguments from the book as a whole. This means that the organization of this summary is not a representation of the book.
Creators spot opportunities others don't see because they are alert and attentive. Keep your eyes open for unmet needs and then transplant ideas from another area, design a new way forward or figure out how to merge what appear to be disparate concepts.
Creators often have unique ways of thinking and acting as they seize opportunities to excel. When you look at the experiences of successful creators, it's clear they tend to see the world and then to act from one of these three perspectives:
The Creator's Code
Sunbirds
Take solutions from one area and apply in a different setting
Architects
Recognize openings and furnish new solutions
Integrators
Take existing products and combine them in new ways
"I find someone who has solved the problem in another field and then just tweak it a little bit."
– Dean Kamen, creator of Segway, AutoSyringe and iBot all-terrain wheelchairs
Sunbirds see solutions that work in one area and then repurpose them for the challenge at hand. Or put another way, Sunbirds take something which already exists and figure out ways to plug that somewhere else. Funnily enough, the more novel the source of their ideas, the greater the likelihood becomes Sunbirds will generate breakthrough results.
Sunbirds typically use the power of analogies to come up with their ideas. When you think about it, most analogies operate at two levels: