The Creator's Code

December 22, 2014
In this ambitious but not totally satisfying debut, Wilkinson, senior fellow at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership, lists the necessary skills for innovators and entrepreneurs. Drawing on more than 200 interviews with leading entrepreneurs, she identifies six specific techniques: “find the gap,” “drive for daylight,” “fly the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop,” “fail wisely,” “network minds,” and “gift small goods.” She also draws a portrait of creators as tirelessly working, networking, and sharing. The entrepreneurs depicted here ultimately triumph, but they also fail, at least at first, and in small, calculated ways. Their trick: staying optimistic while rigorously analyzing each mistake. “I’ve not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work,” Thomas Edison is reported to have said. Elsewhere, Wilkinson quotes an unflappable Elon Musk on starting Telsa Motors: “It feels like chewing glass and staring into the abyss.” Wilkinson clarifies that the “skills aren’t a monopoly of a special category of person,” but are attainable for people willing to commit themselves. Still, despite the book’s impressive array of case studies, it may leave readers feeling that, while the average innovator undoubtedly possesses all the skills enumerated here, there’s a lot more to world-changing innovation. Agent: Kim Witherspoon, Inkwell Management.