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Originals  By  cover art

Originals

By: Adam Grant, Sheryl Sandberg - foreword
Narrated by: Fred Sanders, Susan Denaker
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Publisher's summary

The number one New York Times best seller that examines how people can champion new ideas in their careers and everyday life - and how leaders can fight groupthink, from the author of Think Again and co-author of Option B.

With Give and Take, Adam Grant not only introduced a landmark new paradigm for success but also established himself as one of his generation’s most compelling and provocative thought leaders. In Originals he again addresses the challenge of improving the world, but now from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all?

Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent. Learn from an entrepreneur who pitches his start-ups by highlighting the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who overturned the rule of secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees for failing to criticize him, and a TV executive who didn’t even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor. The payoff is a set of groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and improving the status quo.

©2016 Adam Grant (P)2016 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Reading Originals made me feel like I was seated across from Adam Grant at a dinner party, as one of my favorite thinkers thrilled me with his insights and his wonderfully new take on the world." (Malcolm Gladwell, number-one New York Times best-selling author of Outliers and The Tipping Point)

"Originals is one of the most important and captivating books I have ever read, full of surprising and powerful ideas. It will not only change the way you see the world; it might just change the way you live your life. And it could very well inspire you to change your world.” )Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In)

“Filled with fresh insights on a broad array of topics that are important to our personal and professional lives.” (The New York Times DealBook)

Featured Article: 35+ Quotes About Hard Work to Keep You Motivated and Moving Forward


The things most worth doing require the most from us—it takes hard work to accomplish important tasks, achieve major goals, and realize your dreams. Commitment, sweat, exhaustion, frustration, and a willingness to fail are all necessary parts of taking on challenges. When you’re in the middle of a difficult project, there will be times when you’re tempted to simply give up. In such moments, look to these quotes about hard work to keep you going.

What listeners say about Originals

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Interesting, but not science

I appreciated learning about a company that seriously promotes dissenting opinions as well as social science experiments. Setting up the tests themselves are intersting ideas, but the audio book never mentions the sample sizes or if any experiments have been able to recreate results, so you don't know how real the implications are.

He deals with how relatively little decisions are made where the main gist is to get people to just be more open minded and less dogmatic. I would have found it much more interesting if he analyzed decision making in war where people die based on your decisions.

The book is misnamed. He doesn't define what is original or give a framework to discuss it. He takes a lot of successful people and goes backward to see how they got there implying that they are an Original because they are successful. I would get a lot more out of the author pointing out unsuccessful Originals.

Still, it's interesting to hear about successful people in a casual way. It's better use of time than reading People magazine.

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55 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Read before listening

Fast forward to the last 20 minutes. I found the summary of conclusions to be as valuable as the entire book. The rest is just a collection of history, studies, and quotes from others. Not terrible, but I already knew most of it. Also, this can be listened to at 1.5x +.

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42 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Long winded

I felt like the author tried really hard to prove his points and even through the chapters seems to go back and forth from previous stories told.
Oh, because he shares stories pretty much. I feel like it would make a very good blog post but a very long winded book. I've read other books and this one was hard to complete. I found myself skipping, and trust me I've read some really long boring history books hat somehow kept me reading/listening more than this one

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38 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

How can anyone think this is boring?

If your a fan of Malcolm Gladwell you'll love this book. I was reading the 48 laws of power, and I found that boring. I find books that tell stories from before the 1920 boring and inapplicable to my life. You can learn so much from this book. Invest in yourself, learn, and hear some kick ass stories that make you question what direction they will take. I also love how they mention blockbuster, as I just finished a Blockbuster video on my YouTube channel, the url is Adrianvsjak.

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25 people found this helpful

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Boring!

What disappointed you about Originals?

I wanted to like this but its just not interesting. The examples drag on and just sound like a bunch of boring stories. I made it about half way through then started skipping ahead, it didn't get any better.

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16 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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Unoriginal

The same stories and same lessons retold in a drawn out story. Feels like all those positive reviews are shill :(

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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Nothing novel

Feel like I just heard Outliers by M Gladwell again. No real new ideas. Seemed like a laundry list of examples.

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12 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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A gold mine for the survey junky

I find this book very valuable for me in my work as a business coach. The author shares many good ideas that I like and work to implement in businesses. The book contains results of a large amount of studies done by the author and others. I appreciate that as it strengthen my arguments.

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10 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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A dull summary of psychology papers

This is just an incessant stream of research summary. Study after study, percentage after percentage, tied together with dry story telling.

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9 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Good at first then quickly turns to rambling

The first third was interesting. It discussed technology and inventions and innovative people. Then it went into women's rights, and sooo much about birth order and sibling competitiveness. Much of the research is easy to prove incorrect but they present it as fact. Caught up on random ideas. (For example: the more brothers you have the more likely one of them will be homosexual. It was a random statement that didn't strongly support anything in the chapter). So random and doesn't go anywhere. I regret buying this book.

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8 people found this helpful