Smartcuts: The Breakthrough Power of Lateral Thinking

by Shane Snow

I see this book as a simultaneous hat tip and counterpoint to some of the great success and innovation literature out there (check out shanesnow.com/booklist for my recommendations). It’s a re-analysis and first codification of the ways rapid success has happened throughout history. The step-by-step advice that made an ancient Greek hero rapidly prosperous will be entirely different from what makes a 21st-century businesswoman successful, just as the exact methods an Internet startup uses to grow today will be irrelevant in five years. But the patterns of lateral thinking (smartcuts) behind each of their success stories can be harnessed by anyone who seeks an edge—at work, at the gym, in the arts or education, from social enterprise to personal development, from big companies to small startups.