Author(s): Peter Sims

Business

How can errors produce perfection? How can failure fuel ambition? How can confusion enhance creativity? The answer: little bets. The little bets approach is about using negativity to positive effect. If your plans fall apart, refine them; if you don't know where best to begin, just begin somewhere. Every decision is a risk: take a chance and see what happens. In "Little Bets", bestselling author Peter Sims turns problems on their heads and outlines a counter-intuitive path to perfection. Using real-life case studies from the worlds of business, design, warfare and even comedy, he shows that it can be more rational to act first and think later, more efficient to fail and find out what doesn't work. It's a flexible philosophy that has both saved corporate giants such as Apple and Pixar and inspired the third-world microfinancing industry. When success is the only acceptable outcome, "Little Bets" advocates a bold and radical approach in which failure is good, questions are solutions, and excellence is not a means but an end.