Smartcuts: The Breakthrough Power of Lateral Thinking

by Shane Snow

We’re multiplying our capabilities as a civilization and yet we still accept the notion that important societal progress, like combating inequality and crime—or even innovating in government and medicine—must take generations.

true success has more to do with our becoming better people and building a better world while we do these things than it does with the size of our bank accounts.

(check out shanesnow.com/booklist for my recommendations).

the patterns of lateral thinking (smartcuts) behind each of their success stories can be harnessed by anyone who seeks an edge—at

Lateral thinking doesn’t replace hard work; it eliminates unnecessary cycles.

momentum—not experience—is the single biggest predictor of business and personal success.

There’s something wrong with the great American ladder-climbing advice: presidents of the United States, some of the world’s most successful people, don’t follow it.

Business research shows that this kind of ladder switching generally tends to accelerate a company’s growth. Companies that pivot—that is, switch business models or products—while on the upswing tend to perform much better than those that stay on a single course.

Mentorship is the secret of many of the highest-profile achievers throughout history.

we can spend thousands of hours practicing until we master a skill, or we can convince a world-class practitioner to guide our practice and cut the time to mastery significantly.

smartcut-savvy mentee approaches things a bit differently. She develops personal relationships with her mentors, asks their advice on other aspects of life, not just the formal challenge at hand. And she cares about her mentors’ lives too.

vulnerability. It’s the key, he says, to developing a deep and organic relationship that leads to journey-focused mentorship and not just a focus on practice.

The research showed that experts—people who were masters at a trade—vastly preferred negative feedback to positive. It spurred the most improvement. That was because criticism is generally more actionable than compliments.

THE SECOND CITY MANAGES to accomplish three things to accelerate its performers’ growth: (1) it gives them rapid feedback; (2) it depersonalizes the feedback; and (3) it lowers the stakes and pressure, so students take risks that force them to improve.

“Obviously there are things that a citizen ought to know,” he continued. But, “[we’re using] the entirely wrong approach.” Dyson believes that American schools teach kids to, metaphorically, drive on bumpy grass instead of to pilot cars on highways. Memorization of facts and figures is the primary culprit. What we really need, he says, is to teach kids to use tools that do math for us.

before high school, we devote roughly three-quarters of our math education to memorizing and practicing the use of rules. This leaves too little time, he believes, for higher-order thinking: applying math to solving problems, creating models, or enhancing our understanding of the world. “Calculators and computers can replace some of the memorizing,”

“Mathematics is a way of thinking about problems and issues in the world,”

“Get the thinking right and the skills come largely for free.”

while we may need deep expertise in our industries to become innovators, we actually need only higher-order thinking and the ability to use platforms to do everything else.

In an age of platforms, creative problem solving is more valuable than computational skill.

“Kids there have much more sense that they’re going to have to construct their own future,” Wagner says. They’re taught to be entrepreneurs of their own lives. Instead of standing passively on an education assembly line and being handed reams of facts and figures, they are thrown into rooms of bricks and asked to build castles.

“Intuition is the result of nonconscious pattern recognition,” Dane tells me. However, his research shows that, while logging hours of practice helps us see patterns subconsciously, we can often do just as well by deliberately looking for them.

Deliberate pattern spotting can compensate for experience.

simplification often makes the difference between good and amazing.

Finland’s education system built a higher platform—a better starting point—for its students by requiring all teachers to have master’s degrees and deep expertise in teaching how to learn. That was half of Wagner’s explanation for Finland’s rapid ascent to educational greatness. The second half had to do with what the Finns didn’t do. Over the decades, Finnish education, in fact, had gotten simpler. Instead of teaching kids a little about a lot of things—like most schools do—the Finns started teaching deeply in fewer subjects. Rather than emphasizing general knowledge students would promptly forget, they cut filler and taught vocational skills. “Less is more” and “small is beautiful” are common aphorisms in Finland, and Finnish schools injected them into the curriculum. While every other country added more tests, more homework, and more athletics—with decreasing academic results—Finland scaled back on all of the above.

Students start learning vocations like engineering and business as soon as they hit high school. They skip many of the general education courses most of us forget. And they actually like school.

“It’s often easier to make something 10 times better than it is to make it 10 percent better.”

“If, on the other hand, you make something ten times better for a large number of people—you really produce huge amounts of new value—the money’s gonna come find you. Because it would be hard not to make money if you’re really adding that much value.”

#1: HACKING THE LADDER

#2: TRAINING WITH MASTERS

#3: RAPID FEEDBACK

#4: PLATFORMS

#5: CATCHING WAVES

#6: SUPERCONNECTING

#7: MOMENTUM

#8: SIMPLICITY

#9: 10X THINKING