Partie I : Raccourcir

Chapitre 1 : Pirater l'échelle

U.S. presidents are, on average, younger when they take office than U.S. senators are when they start their terms: the average age for presidents, senators and members of the House is 55, 62 and 57, respectively. This trend has held true since the founding of the country, and it is perplexing, as service in the legislature is commonly viewed as a stepping stone to presidential office. The job of president is more complex than that of a legislator (and harder to get), yet presidents are, on average, younger than legislators. It’s counterintuitive, to say the least.

When we analyze the career paths of American presidents, it becomes clear that they spend less time climbing the governmental career ladder than do their counterparts in the legislature. American presidents tend to have unique career paths. This pattern can also be seen with other highly successful people — rather than follow the prescribed strategies for success, they create their own paths to achievement. They aren’t ladder climbers; they’re ladder hackers.

At Brigham Young University, students play “Bigger or Better,” which is a kind of a scavenger hunt where participants go door to door trading everyday objects with those in the neighborhood. The point of the game is to trade up. Students start small, with toothpicks for example, and at the end of the night they have scored items like stereos and televisions. Snow leverages this example to explain that there’s an advantage to be gained in switching ladders, shifting skills and other resources to a different paradigm to gain profit. It’s a sort of existential arbitrage.

Many U.S. presidents started on one ladder, demonstrating their leadership skills in one arena, then switched ladders. Woodrow Wilson, for example, was a university president. Frank Sinatra said of New York, “If I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere.” And he had a point. People judge you by a different standard if you can succeed in the competitive jungle of New York. People also judge presidential candidates by a different standard; they judge them by their leadership skills.

Playing the game and paying your dues is really a trap that results in you getting stuck. This is a new day, and the old paradigms don’t work anymore. To succeed, we need to be more like Sinatra. We need to be college students continuously trading up, trading bigger and better. We need to jump sideways like cheetahs. We need to think like entrepreneurs. We need to hack the ladder.

Chapitre 2 : Formation avec des maîtres

Some people, like comedian Louis C.K., pay their dues and struggle for years before they find success. Others, like singer Justin Bieber, catapult quickly to the top of their field. Snow parallels these experiences with the story of Homer’s Odyssée. When Odysseus went to war, he put his son in the care of his good friend Mentor, who was goddess Athena in disguise. Athena gave Odysseus’s son so much good advice that he became a hero. Just like Odysseus’s son, Bieber had good mentors.

À travers la littérature, on trouve d’innombrables histoires de mentors. La fiction regorge d’Obi Wan Kenobi et Micky Goldmill. Les récits des mentors trouvent un écho auprès du public, probablement parce que les mentors aident réellement leurs élèves. Les gens reconnaissent la vérité dans ces histoires et sont attirés par elles. Toutefois, le mentorat ne garantit pas à lui seul le succès. Cela doit s’accompagner de beaucoup de travail acharné.

But don’t wait for a mentor — it’s like waiting for prince charming. Pursue your goal, and if you happen to find a good mentor, cool. If not, cool. In that case, study the people who went before you. You can’t always get a mentor, but you can always learn from history. Jimmy Fallon’s manager was his personal mentor, but Fallon also looked for inspiration from comedians who came before him, even though he didn’t know them. Louis C.K. struggled for a long time. Eventually he did find a mentor in George Carlin, and consciously studied and mimicked Carlin’s delivery and style of humor. After he adopted this strategy he quickly rose to stardom.

Chapitre 3 : Commentaires rapides

Upworthy a commencé lorsque le fondateur Eli Pariser a remarqué que des histoires trash circulaient sur Internet, mais que peu de contenus édifiants étaient populaires. Pariser voulait un site qui aiderait les histoires positives à devenir virales. Les sociétés de médias mettent beaucoup de temps à développer leur audience, et Upworthy a mis beaucoup de temps à comprendre.

Now we’re in New York, at a mock funeral for startups. Techies have decided that failure is cool.
En fait, les personnes qui échouent dans leur première entreprise sont plus susceptibles d’échouer également dans la suivante. Les personnes qui réussissent ont plus de chances de réussir à nouveau.

We tend to blame failure on outside sources, which keeps us from learning from them. But we do learn from other people’s failures, and when we see someone else fail, we tend to blame them. We don’t want to be like them, so we learn from their mistake.

Feedback doesn’t usually work, because people are too self-conscious to take it to heart. And if feedback makes us self-conscious, it can make us perform worse. Nevertheless, negative feedback can be immensely helpful, if we can manage to focus on the task rather than on ourselves. It’s hard to be objective about ourselves and our performance, but that’s exactly what we must do — put egos aside and accept the feedback. To learn from negative feedback, you’ve got to get comfortable with failure.

Take, for example, students at Second City comedy school who analyze their performance so that they can learn from failure. Feedback should come immediately after performance, whenever possible, so every night after the show, the cast returns to the stage and practices new bits for any audience members who choose to stick around. It’s a casual performance, and the audience is solicited for suggestions on how to improve the gags. Second City’s process helps comedians get into the right headspace to do this.

Étude de cas : Upworthy a publié une vidéo touchante sur un garçon décédé d'un cancer. Ils ont posté dans la même vidéo avec une variété de titres. Certains titres se sont révélés plus populaires que d’autres. Après avoir obtenu plus de données, ils ont retravaillé à nouveau les titres. Finalement, ils ont trouvé un titre améliorant les clics grâce à un impressionnant 116%. Ensuite, ils ont ajouté une image miniature qui a amélioré le taux de clics de 69% supplémentaires, pour une amélioration totale de 186%. Les bonnes personnes d'Upworthy ont utilisé les commentaires pour créer un titre qui a rendu la vidéo si populaire qu'elle a finalement été visionnée par 10 millions de personnes.

Partie II : Effet de levier

Chapitre 4 : Plateformes

Les routes ont souvent commencé comme des chemins de terre cahoteux, s’améliorant par étapes. Finalement, ils sont pavés. De la même manière, les ordinateurs se sont améliorés par étapes. Personne n’a plus besoin de comprendre le code binaire pour utiliser un ordinateur ; des couches d’amélioration les ont rendus plus faciles à utiliser. Pour paraphraser Isaac Newton, lorsque les améliorations technologiques s’appuient sur des améliorations antérieures, elles reposent sur les épaules de géants.

Snow offers a different definition of “platforms” than you’ve likely seen elsewhere. According to his definition, a platform is something that’s part of the process of translating what the user types into code that the computer can understand, as well as the layers of improvement that each new iteration adds. Platforms are more about the interface of computer and user.

Famous scientist and mathematician Freeman Dyson doesn’t think schools should teach kids math; rather, schools should teach kids the tools they need to do math. Instead of memorizing multiplication tables, kids should learn to use calculators. It turns out that people actually do learn math faster with calculators; hands-on learning makes us want to learn. Similarly, platforms help us master the basics much quicker. What we all need is to learn to use platforms. Platforms can be tools like calculators. They can also be environments, like schools. More innovation happens in urban areas, because cities are platforms.

Chapter 5: Waves

Les surfeurs attendent la bonne vague. Ils étudient l'océan et pagayent jusqu'à un bon endroit. Certaines personnes sont vraiment douées pour lire l’eau ; ils développent un instinct de reconnaissance de formes. Nous pouvons également rechercher délibérément des modèles.

Pattern recognition will help you determine when to jump in and surf. Being first in a market is traditionally thought to give companies a first-mover advantage, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Sometimes the second or third wave in a set will have more power than the first. It is good to understand patterns and to watch the waves and figure out which one to ride.

Les premiers arrivés ont un taux d’échec élevé. Ce n’est pas le cas des premiers dirigeants. Les premiers à faire le gros du travail doivent faire le gros du travail, comme mettre en place l’infrastructure. Les premiers dirigeants peuvent alors intervenir et bénéficier d’un tour gratuit. Mais parfois, après tout, la première vague est la meilleure.

Sonny Moore faisait partie d'un groupe appelé From First to Last. Ils ont été abandonnés par leur label et se sont séparés. Moore a commencé à jouer avec son ordinateur et à créer de la musique électronique. Il avait un ami qui était DJ et le couple a commencé à organiser des soirées dansantes dans les entrepôts de Los Angeles. La musique de danse électronique était un nouveau genre dont la popularité explosait. La technologie a permis à l’individu moyen de créer plus facilement de la musique, et Internet a facilité la diffusion de cette musique.

Moore started releasing EDM tracks online for free, and one day a producer asked if he wanted to work with an up-and-coming singer named Lady Gaga. Gaga became famous, Moore’s star began to rise, he changed his name to Skillrex and the rest is history. It wasn’t luck that brought Moore to his achievements, it was his ability to read the waves.

Sometimes hard work isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to get in the water and know which wave to ride.

Chapitre 6 : Superconnecteurs

Imagine you’re at a party where you don’t know anyone. If you’re outgoing, you might walk up to someone and start talking to them. If you’re an introvert, you might wait for someone to talk to you. Either of these tactics might lead to conversations with a couple of people. Now imagine you have a friend at the party who is outgoing and talkative. Your friend introduces you to everyone she thinks you should know, and you end up talking to 12 different people. Your friend has played the role of a superconnector.

Mass media acts as a superconnector in society. In Cuba, there were several attempts to take power out of the corrupt hands of the dictatorship and the mob, but the revolutionaries had trouble finding allies and gaining followers. The Batista regime succeeded in chasing the rebels, including one Fidel Castro, into the jungle highlands. Although the rebels managed to hold on to a tiny piece of land and conduct raids from there, the group was tiny and powerless compared to the might of the government. And there was no way for the revolution to spread, as most Cubans didn’t even know it was a thing.

Ensuite, quelqu’un a apporté un émetteur radioamateur et cela a tout changé. Les paysans avaient des radios (et bien peu d’autres choses) et ils écoutaient les révolutionnaires. Ils sont de plus en plus nombreux à rejoindre la cause. Le soutien aux rebelles a fait boule de neige et le 1er janvier 1959, Batista a fui le pays et la révolution était terminée. Castro et ses paysans rebelles contrôlaient la nation insulaire.

Che Guevara started literacy courses for the people; he also taught farming and self-defense. Guevara understood that their radio station couldn’t just be a channel for revolutionary propaganda. He insisted that everything they broadcasted should be completely true. Because of this stance, the rebels gained the people’s trust. Whatever you might think about Castro — and no matter how bad Cuban-American relations might be — some of the lasting effects of the revolution still help the people to this day. The literacy rate, for example, is at 99.8%, which is higher than literacy in the United States.

La radio est un superconnecteur.

Partie III : Envolez-vous

Chapter 7: Momentum

Wealthy people get depressed once they no longer have anything to work toward. Astronauts have this problem as well. So it turns out that people in dead-end jobs and really successful people have more in common than you might guess: they both get depressed because they feel they aren’t progressing or moving forward. People need to feel progress and feel they are moving forward. In fact, momentum is more important than quality or financials or most anything else. And sometimes the perception of momentum is as good as momentum itself.

In 2010, Paul Vasquez posted a funny video on YouTube, and it became a viral sensation. Vasquez was on fire. Around the same time, Michelle Phan posted a makeup tutorial video, which also became a viral hit. Phan’s tutorial became as popular as Vasquez’s comic video.

Vasquez continued to make videos, trying to capitalize on his early success. He sold t-shirts with the theme of his hit video. But he never again saw the success of that first video. Phan, on the other hand, has become wildly popular on YouTube. She’s one of the top producers of videos on the site and has contracts with makeup companies. Her star continues to rise.

Ces deux personnes ayant connu des succès similaires au début ont eu des résultats très différents.

Michelle Phan’s interest in art started when she was a teenager. She had a blog which featured her creative projects, and eventually she made it into art school. The video that would catapult her to fame was a tutorial on how to copy Lady Gaga’s makeup on her Bad Romance video. Phan analyzed how videos became hits and developed a strategy for success on the site. After her Gaga video, people looked at the other videos she’d created. She had enough of a backlog to keep people entertained, and she continued to post new ones to take advantage of the momentum. Her approach worked and she now has a successful YouTube channel.

Vasquez, en revanche, était une merveille avec un catalogue banal de films amateurs ordinaires. Il n’avait jamais prévu la gloire qui lui serait venue si soudainement. Il fut aussi surpris que quiconque par son premier succès. Il n’avait aucune stratégie pour le perpétuer au-delà de la vente de quelques t-shirts.

Nous avons appris ici des leçons importantes. Capturez l’élan quand cela se produit. Battre le fer tant qu'il est chaud. Développez votre potentiel pour pouvoir profiter de moments de chance inattendus. Il faut aussi payer sa cotisation, préparer le terrain. Amorcez le moteur des opportunités.

Chapitre 8 : Simplicité

Incubators are made for hospitals (big institutions with big budgets), and technological improvements make them more expensive with each iteration. They consume large amounts of electricity, because of which, most third-world hospitals can’t afford these lifesaving devices. Even those managing to acquire incubators can have trouble generating the electricity needed to run them.

Jane Chen wanted to do something about this. At first, she and her team considered making cheaper incubators, but they never could strip enough features to make a cheaper version work. They reconsidered the problem and realized that what a premature baby needs more than any other thing is warmth. An incubator’s other features, like life sign monitors, were nice to have, but they weren’t as important as keeping the baby warm.

With that insight, they went on to invent something akin to a preemie sleeping bag, which was insulated and came with a hot pad. The invention worked. It kept babies warm, it was easy to use and it required much less energy than an incubator. The outcome was that babies’ lives were saved and continue to be every day. Sometimes the simple solutions are the best ones. Bigger is not always better.

Innover, c’est faire quelque chose de nouveau. On parle d’innovation disruptive lorsqu’une nouveauté modifie complètement la donne au point d’éliminer tous les acteurs établis. Les innovations de rupture permettent généralement d’économiser du temps ou de l’argent. Ces technologies sont des simplificatrices. Ils rendent les choses plus faciles ; ils rendent les choses plus simples.

Innovators have a talent for simplification, for zeroing in on what matters, and for focusing on the important challenges that they face. And innovative geniuses eliminate unimportant decisions from their lives. Steve Jobs, for example, stuck to black turtlenecks and one style of jeans so he didn’t have to waste time deciding what to wear. A study at the University of Minnesota showed that having to make multiple small and inconsequential decisions can sap a person’s subsequent self-control, and deplete patience and willpower. Clearing out the clutter of minor decisions can improve the quality of big decisions.

Sometimes the momentum to move forward keeps us on the wrong track. When this happens, simplification allows you to focus on what’s important. Constraints help creativity. If I ask you to say something funny, you’ll likely freeze and have trouble thinking of anything to say. On the other hand, if I ask you to specifically tell me a knock-knock joke, it’s much easier. Constraints make the task easier.

As Steve Jobs said, simplicity is “the ultimate sophistication.”

Chapitre 9 : Réflexion 10x

Entrepreneur Elon Musk sold his first video game at age 12, and by 31, he had started and sold two companies. With time and money on his hands, he began to study space travel. He felt that, like most other technologies, it should get cheaper over time. But it did not. Only governments invested in space, and because it was so expensive, they didn’t invest in big-ticket outcomes, like sending people to Mars.

Musk, however, thought that sending people to Mars would be an important step in human development. So he did the unthinkable: he put a team of rocket scientists together and began working on the problem as a private enterprise, SpaceX. Because he wasn’t the government, he didn’t do things the government way, and he managed to find ways to cut costs significantly.

The kind of smartcuts that drive Musk’s success is called 10x réflexion — the art of taking a big swing. To really make big improvements, you have to change things, sometimes drastically. And to do this, you have to let go of some assumptions. You can’t just look for improvement, which will get you just 10% better. You’re looking for 10x better.

Aiming high results in better performance, because people try harder. Also, when there’s just a few competitors, our performance improves compared to when there are none. When people know there’s lots of competition, they underperform; this is called the N-Effect. People like big swings. It’s part of who we are; the grand gesture captures our attention.

Elon Musk’s rockets kept crashing, but he kept trying. His third rocket, Falcon 1, was launched in August 2008, and like the two before it, it crashed. He rallied his supporters and convinced them that it was worthwhile to keep trying. He was right, and his next attempt on September 28, 2008 successfully launched into orbit. It flew perfectly.

After he’d successfully launched a rocket into space, it was easy for him to get funding. People, including investors, were excited, because Musk had done what no private party had ever done before: he had radically changed the playing field. He had made a 10x change. This captured people’s imagination much more than any incremental change ever could have.

Les personnes qui réalisent ce genre de grands rêves sont des modèles pour le reste d’entre nous. Ils nous font savoir que nous pouvons réaliser l’invraisemblable.

Épilogue

D’Wayne Edwards grew up in Joliet, Ill. He had a disadvantaged childhood. His mother was disabled and from her Social Security disability insurance, she raised six children.

Edwards was attracted to art. In middle school, he became enamored with sneakers and they became the focus of his drawing. He became such a good artist that by high school, he exceeded his art teacher’s abilities. The school encouraged him to make a lateral move to drafting class, which fostered discipline in his drawing.

He spent a lot of money on shoes and worked in fast food to pay for this addiction. After winning a design competition, Edwards became determined to become a shoe designer when he grew up. When he graduated high school, he couldn’t afford art school so went to community college instead. He got a temp job doing filing at LA Gear, where a suggestion box sat in the office. Edwards kept submitting design ideas to the suggestion box — ultimately, he got the boss’ attention and was offered a job designing shoes.

Sneakers were enjoying immense popularity among young men and boys at the time. Most of the people who designed sneakers didn’t know much about the young people who were buying their shoes, but Edwards did. He was one of those kids. His designs spoke to them in a way that other designers could not. Edwards rose in the field, moving from company to company in a variety of jobs. By the time he was 30 years old, he was one of eight people to design Air Jordan sneakers. He had achieved the pinnacle of his field.

He wished there were more African American shoe designers. To fill this gap, he founded a design academy. He got high rollers in the industry to fund scholarships for disadvantaged students and other populations that were underrepresented in the shoe business. He used his own experience to teach the students how to succeed. Edwards’ story exemplifies the smartcuts framework.

Pour résumer les idées présentées dans ce livre, voici une liste des neuf principes importants :

Ressources additionnelles

Examen de Smartcuts par Brandon Redlinger

Entretien avec l'auteur de Smartcuts de Harper Collins

Examen des Smartcuts by Tech en Asie

Examen de Smartcuts par le Los Angeles Times

Aperçu de Smartcuts par The Entrepreneurs Library

Achetez des Smartcuts sur Amazon

Résumé des Smartcuts par Actionable Books Libérer

Résumé des Smartcuts de Brandon Redlinger Libérer

Résumé des Smartcuts par Get Abstracts Freemium

Résumé des Smartcuts de Get Nugget Libérer

Résumé des Smartcuts par impact Libérer

Résumé des Smartcuts par Forbes Libérer

Résumé des Smartcuts de Blinkist Freemium

Résumé des Smartcuts par Stanford Social Innovation Review Libérer

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