The Power of Moments: Why Certain Moments Have Extraordinary Impact

by Chip Heath

Beck, who had top leadership positions in three enormous retail chains—Blockbuster Video, Boston Chicken, and Einstein Bros—said that the secret to growing a business is to “reduce negative variance and increase positive variance.”

To increase positive variance is to welcome humanity and spontaneity into the system.

“crystallization of discontent,”

This three-part recipe—a (1) clear insight (2) compressed in time and (3) discovered by the audience itself—provides a blueprint for us when we want people to confront uncomfortable truths.

dramatize the problems:

You can’t appreciate the solution until you appreciate the problem.

His question, “What did you guys fail at this week?” was a push to stretch. It was an attempt to normalize failure, to make it part of a casual dinner conversation. Because when you seek out situations where you might fail, failure loses some of its menace. You’ve been inoculated against it.

The promise of stretching is not success, it’s learning.