11 Books to Help You Get Past Your Blind Spots
We all have them. These authors just help you realize it.
I’m releasing a book tomorrow called The Innovation Blind Spot: Why We Back the Wrong Ideas and What to Do About It.
In it, I make two assumptions about the reader. First, I assume you are someone who is trying to make the world a better place. Second, I assume you think that capitalism and democracy, for all their faults, are the best systems to govern the conduct of people in our world — at the very least, they are “the worst, except for all the others that have been tried.”
Yet in some ways, capitalism and democracy today are on life support. Entrepreneurial activity — the lifeblood of both — is at a 40-year low. Inequality is at a 100-year high. And trust in our government and economic systems is the lowest it’s ever been. Where did we go wrong?
My book provides one answer, by focusing on innovation. The pace of new ideas in today’s world is nothing short of incredible. But the way that we pick which big, new ideas to “back” — as investors, as leaders in the non-profit and impact space, as corporate trendsetters, or as citizens — is important. And we have a tendency to fall into comfortable patterns and let our biases take the driver’s seat.
My perspective in writing this book was shaped by so many thinkers to whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude. Below, I’d like to share a few books that helped me learn about the different kinds of blind spots we all face — and how to get past them.
Happy reading!
— Ross
1. Adam Grant — Originals
It’s very difficult to know how to spot truly original ideas. Most discussions on innovation and ingenuity focus on how you yourself can be more innovative. Adam Grant’s Originals distinguishes itself by helping you figure out how to spot original ideas elsewhere. In the book, he describes a study where global theatrical phenomenon Cirque du Soleil determines which high-flying acts actually make it into a show.
The study’s author, Justin Berg, surveyed both Creators — circus performers who designed new feats — and Managers — the ringmasters who historically decided which acts would see the light of day. Berg found that Managers were often poor forecasters of which performances would be popular. They would choose new acts based on patterns of what the audiences liked last time — what we sometimes call “pattern recognition”. On the other hand, Creators were also poor forecasters of whether their own ideas would succeed: in general, humans have a cognitive bias that leads us to overestimate our own ideas and abilities relative to others’.
This is just one example of a book full of great research and stories that help us think differently in spotting new ideas.
2. Arlie Rothschild — Strangers in their Own Land
The world’s complicated, and always has been, anthropologist Arlie Rothschild argues, and people make sense of it through stories, not facts and figures. She spends two years embedded in a Louisiana community that faces contradictions: even though they are facing community-killing pollution, they oppose environmental regulations, for example. Rothschild argues that in order to build better communities and a society, you need to create a compelling, deep narrative — counter to the prevailing popular narrative — to change anything for the better.
3. Barry Lynn — Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction
The coming economic battle is not left vs. right, or populism vs. globalism, it’s big vs. small. Even though nearly one hundred per cent of new jobs are created by entrepreneurs — businesses less than five years old — big is killing small. Entrepreneurial activity is at a 40-year low, and more Americans work for large companies than at any point in the last generation.
I learned how we over-focus on the big and under-focus on the small through Barry Lynn. For years, Barry Lynn has been doing vital research on monopolies, and how the consolidation of power in a few corporations has stifled entrepreneurship and dynamism in the American economy. Last month something happened that proved his point exactly: he was fired by the think tank where he worked, the New America Foundation, after criticizing Google, one of the think tank’s. This was a devastating blow to free thought, but also a moment that has brought Barry’s ideas into the spotlight. Follow his new organization, Citizens Against Monopolies, to learn more about how you can get involved.
4. Ben Jealous: Reach: 40 Black Men Speak on Living, Leading, and Succeeding
Most books on the New York Times best seller (and, to be self-aware, most books on this list) are by white guys. Ben Jealous is a friend and mentor who has made a career of lifting up and celebrating people whose voices aren’t heard. As the youngest President of the NAACP, he rejuvenated an organization and put power in the hands of young, previously overlooked activists across the country, helping people find their voice. In Reach, Ben tells the stories of forty of their leaders in their own words. As you read this book, you’ll realize how most stories you hear come from a dominant narrative, and if you look elsewhere, you can see insights that might be sitting in your blind spots. Who tells the story matters.
(PS: Ben is now running for Governor of Maryland. I encourage you to check out what he has to say!)
5. Brad Feld — Startup Opportunities: Know When to Quit Your Day Job
When I tell people that I invest in startups, I bet one in three respond, “I have this idea, but I know I can’t raise money until I quit my day job. Should I do it?” Now, I send them a link to to Brad’s book. It’s scientific — how big of a market do you need, and how do you measure it? It’s also brutally clinical — in a helpful way — putting a would-be founder in the seat of an investor looking at their idea. Knowing what NOT to pursue is as important as knowing what to pursue, and this book outlines it really well.
I also talk to founders every day who are hugely talented yet have the odds stacked against the when raising money — whether the market isn’t big enough or the idea isn’t different enough from the competition. No matter how awesome the founder is, the odds are stacked against them. After reading Brad’s book, I now send these founders a link. Brad much better than I am lays out the clinical math behind what ideas are worth cutting bait-or pursuing. A mentor of mine once told me that founders actually need to be much pickier about which ideas to pursue than investors. Investors have a portfolio of ideas, and while failure’s no fun, you can absorb it. If you’re starting a business, you have a portfolio of one. This helps you pick the one.
6. Chris Schroeder — Startup Rising
Chris Schroeder is a serial entrepreneur — from media to health care — as well as an advisor and investor who spent time at the White House and the Department of State. With his background in entrepreneurship, finance and statecraft, he has written the best book of the moment about the rising innovation hubs of the Middle East. Though the region is undeniably volatile, there are incredible advances being made in mobile, solar power, and social networks, among other industries.
Chris’ book points out transformative economic opportunities that no one is paying attention to. For example, one startup in the Middle East-Souq-transformed the economic lives of hundreds of Middle Eastern entrepreneurs directly, and more importantly, created a vision for thousands of more entrepreneurs as what a successful example could look like. For anyone interested in how ecosystems are built from the ground up, or anyone looking for investment opportunities where others aren’t, this is a valuable read.
7. Jackie VanderBrug — Gender Lens Investing
In the average year, 5% of startup investment goes to a company with a woman on the founding team. Also, 5% of the decision-makers in investing are women. Yet in both startups and public companies, both women and men on the founding team tend to outperform in revenue growth and profitability. And 80% of consumer decisions are made by women. Why does our investment industry overlook more than 50% of the population?
Jackie’s book is an honest and relentless look at how we think about, structure, and make investments — and completely ignore the role of gender in doing so. She looks at everything from sourcing (finding opportunities that women can understand better than men) and portfolio construction (for example, women tend to be more collaborative, and think longer-term). If you’re interested in re-thinking your portfolio, here’s a great place to start.
8. Jacqueline Novogratz- The Blue Sweater
Every idea stands on the shoulders of innovators before it. As I note in The Innovation Blind Spot, when I started Village Capital’s investment strategy, I had a very difficult time explaining “two-pocket thinking”: investing in businesses that are both trying to be profitable and doing social good. Yet it was thanks to Jacqueline Novogratz and other pioneers like her that I was able to get off the ground. Nearly a decade before I started Village Capital, Jacqueline was innovating with the idea of “patient capital”: her firm, Acumen, was one of the first investment firms anywhere to invest intentionally with a goal of both financial return and social good.
The Blue Sweater is an engaging autobiography that tells both Jacqueline’s story and the story of a more productive way of thinking about capitalism. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for people like Jacqueline-and her story is the cutting edge of global changes in the capital markets.
9. Jonathan Lewis — The Unfinished Social Entrepreneur
“Social entrepreneurs” have one thing in common worldwide, says Jonathan Lewis — they can’t explain to their parents what they do. In trying to change the world, and build successful businesses, they are pursuing a mission that integrates vocation and career — and sometimes confuses the hell out of the rest of the world.
A compilation of 21 original essays and insights about the challenges every social entrepreneur encounters, this book is a great source of inspiration and advice for one-pocket thinkers looking to solve major problems. Lewis is not afraid to talk about the “mind-boggling self-doubt” that is familiar to any entrepreneur, and he places the battle to start a meaningful business into the larger context of thinkers and doers committed to social justice and social change.
10. Kim Jordan and the New Belgium Brewing Company — New Belgium’s Adult Coloring Book
One of my favorite entrepreneurs is Kim Jordan, the founder of New Belgium Brewing. She isn’t an amazing innovator because of WHAT she created — people have been brewing beer for thousands of years; she’s incredible because of HOW she created it — New Belgium is a billion-dollar company that’s 100% employee-owned. Janitors are going to retire comfortably at New Belgium because of the way the company shares its prosperity with people who create it.
New Belgium’s a template for the kind of company that’s going to succeed in the future — a place where people feel ownership and buy-in, and see just rewards for hard work and ingenuity. They’re doing things differently-and succeeding. And it it only fitting that when the New Belgium team wrote a book, it wasn’t a history of the brewing industry or a business strategy book — it was an adult coloring book that introduces stress relief and fun to our blind spots.
11. Steve Case — The Third Wave
This week, AOL co-founder Steve Case was listed at the top of Politico’s list of DC power players for his role as “tech’s ambassador outside Silicon Valley”. This is well-deserved recognition for Steve’s decade-long work celebrating and lifting up the innovation that is occurring between the coasts and all over the US, through his Rise of the Rest bus tour and investments by his firm Revolution. In this best-seller, he shared his insights on the future of entrepreneurship, and argued convincingly that startups are going to have to take on tough industries, like health and education.
Steve has been an incredible mentor to me as we try and help the Rest rise. We’ve traveled thousands of miles together around the world by plane and bus finding, supporting, and investing in entrepreneurs people are overlooking. I’ve learned from Steve how to take a seed of a good idea mainstream — remember, this is the guy who probably mailed you thousands of CDs in the 1990s. And I’m a pretty stubborn guy — all entrepreneurs are — but I’ve also learned from Steve a patience and resilience in building partnerships, knowing that, as Steve often says, “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”
Ross Baird is President of Village Capital and author of The Innovation Blind Spot: The Innovation Blind Spot: Why We Back the Wrong Ideas and What to Do About It.
You learn more about how to get past your blind spots by following Village Capital on Medium.
