Customer Reviews

Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality

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Anyone with much experience with brainstorming sessions already knows that "making ideas" is quite easy. Making them HAPPEN is quite a different challenge and a much more formidable one. Again I am reminded of Thomas Edison's admonition, "Vision without execution is hallucination." What we have in this book is a remarkably comprehensive as well as lively informative discussion of how almost anyone can develop the capacity to master a process that Scott Belsky characterizes as a "primer":

1. You have ideas (yours or someone else's) that you want to make happen: "Most ideas get lost in what I call the `project plateau,' a period of intense execution where your natural creative tendencies turn against you." Belsky explains what these tendencies are as well as how to avoid of overcome them.

2. Making ideas happen == ideas + Organization = Communal forces = Leadership capability: "We will dive into ach of these forces and discuss how you should use them in your own creative pursuits." Belsky delivers in abundance on that promise.

3. Organization enables you to manage and ultimately execute your ideas...or someone else's: "The Action Method [that Belsky explains and discusses in detail] is a composite of the best practices for productivity shared by creative leaders." Belsky has picked the brains of hundreds of the most productive creative thinkers and shares their most valuable insights, as well as his own. Better yet, he organizes them in the aforementioned Action Method, a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective system to make ideas happen.

4. The forces of community are invaluable and readily available: "Ideas don't happen in isolation. You must embrace opportunities to broadcast and then refine your ideas through the energy of those around you." The greatest teams achieve their success with communication, cooperation, and most important of all, collaboration.

5. Fruitful innovation requires a unique capacity to lead: "While the tendency to generate ideas is rather natural, the path to making them happen is tumultuous. This book is intended to outfit you with the methods and insights that build your capacity to defy the odds and make your ideas happen." The process of effective execution of ideas, once refined through rigorous collaboration, requires leadership that combines tenacity with patience, vision with a compulsion to make that vision a reality, and personal integrity with what Ernest Hemingway once characterized as a "built-in, shock-proof crap detector."

Belsky devotes an entire chapter to self-leadership, calling his reader's attention to the fact that "as you lead others in creative pursuits, you are your greatest liability. Self-leadership is about awareness, tolerance, and not letting your natural tendencies limit your potential." What does he suggest?

"Find a Path to Self-awareness. Our best hope for staying on track is to notice when we stray and to figure out why - to be self-aware. Self-awareness is a critical skill in leadership but it is deeply personal. It is not about our actions but abut the emotions that trigger them.

"Develop a Tolerance for Ambiguity. Patience in the face of ambiguity helps us to avoid rash decisions driven by our emotions instead of our intellects. We must use time to our advantage to temper our tendency to act too quickly.

"Capture the Benefits of Failure. When things go wrong, there are three questions we should seek to answer:

o What external conditions may explain the failure?

o What internal factors may have compromised your judgment?

o Are there any gems in the unintended outcomes?

" Avoid the Trap of Visionary Narcissism. The tendency to think that a given opportunity or challenge is a one-off persists. I have come to call this propensity "visionary narcissism" - it is a leader's default thinking that he or she is an exception to the rule."

The word "how" is frequently used throughout my review because, as I hope my comments suggest, Belsky is a diehard, world-class pragmatist who was determined to learn everything he could about how to make ideas happen. The observations he shares in this brilliant book are anchored in a wealth of real-world experience (his and others'); his recommendations, therefore, are research-driven. For those who now struggle to understand the obstacles between vision and reality, as well as for those who now struggle to overcome these obstacles, this is a "must read."

"Surely, as I have thought, so it shall come to pass,
And as I have purposed, so it shall stand:" -- Isaiah 14:24 (NKJV)

Psychologists estimate that the average person has over 10,000 thoughts a day. I believe that because I once met a consultant who would share almost that many thoughts with me every time we met. The only problem was that these weren't very useful thoughts . . . but he sure loved each and every one. I took to peeking around corners so I could avoid his latest informal briefing. That's one kind of problem that people have with their ideas . . . they don't attract any interest.

Mr. Belsky organizes the method of turning ideas into action according this formula:

"(The Idea) + Organization and Execution + Forces of Community + Leadership Capability"

The book digs into this formula by first proposing a way of organizing work on ideas (the Action Method). I found the proposal to be reasonably similar to the way I organize my work so I suggest you take it seriously if you have trouble keeping track of what's going on the moving things forward expeditiously. I agree with the key point that it takes a lot of effort to turn an idea into reality. Most of my books were conceived of in a few seconds or minutes, but the work involved to write and produce one takes months of dedicated, consistent effort. Implementations that build on the books take 100 times more effort.

I also agree with the point about concentrating your efforts. Otherwise you get 1 percent of a lot of things done, which amounts to nothing being accomplished.

I thought that Mr. Belsky also did a good job of pointing out how collaboration helps. Right on!

I personally found the section on leadership capability to be the most practical. After reading that section, I had six ideas for accomplishing more and have implemented two of them this week with good success. I suspect that all six ideas will work well. I cannot remember the last time I developed six valuable new ideas from reading a business book. Bravo!

I also suspect that this book will reward re-reading, something I intend to test out in a few months.

Get this book, read it . . . then get serious about turning your ideas into reality!

Lots of hype around this book but sadly it's not worth reading. No new ideas around productivity. The core message is that ideas are cheap...hard work is what matters. Figure anyone with half a brain already has figured that out. Other than that it's just a mish-mash of ideas that every book on getting things done has covered. Making Ideas Happen is basically a big sales pitch for the Action Method products that Scott Belsky's company sells. Save your money and time.

Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky is an exceptional read! I have read many books of this sort but this is definitely the best yet. Belsky has done a tremendous job at not only giving an insight into the execution of an idea through theory but also through practice. So many of these books don't give you a step by step guide on how you can actually change your company's practices. This book is actually a "how to guide" for someone who doesn't need help getting the idea but with the execution. I am only half way through the book and I absolutely love it! I have already begun putting these ideas into practice and am excited to see the results. I have already recommended it to a handful of people who ran out to buy the book. Young or old, everyone can use a few tips here and there to keep their ideas in check.

This book is for anyone who has no problem coming up with ideas, but is frustrated by an inability to make significant progress on anything important. The author draws heavily from his experience as founder of the Behance Network (behance.net), which is a platform for traditional creative professionals (designers, photographers, artists, etc.). I read the book from the perspective of a technology entrepreneur, and I was not disappointed. I would recommend the book to anyone who feels that they could be doing more professionally.

Belsky posits that for an individual or a team to be consistently productive, the power of three forces must be harnessed: organization, community and leadership. The book is organized along these three broad topics.

In part 1, Organization and Execution, Belsky explains the "Action Method", which fans of David Allen will recognize as a simplified GTD (to which the author also makes reference). The discussion on execution covers project management, prioritization and how to deal with the issues that often knock projects off track, either for teams or individuals. This is well worn territory in the world of business/productivity literature, but Belsky's treatment is refreshing in its simplicity. No pseudo-science here, just pragmatic advice.

Part 2 is about harnessing the power of community. Whether working alone or as part of a team, ideas can only become reality when others become involved. Belsky makes a strong argument for transparency and engaging others early on in a project as a way to keep execution on track.

The third and final section is about leadership. Again, this is a well worn topic, but the writing is fresh, and follows well the ideas presented in the first two parts of the book. The last chapter is about self-leadership, which I found to be a suiting conclusion.

The theme that runs through all three sections is the tension between creative thinking and actually getting ideas out of our heads and into the real world. The type of thinking that generates good ideas has to be balanced with discipline and process. The default mode for many of us is to be in idea generation mode, which is distracting and leads to behaviours that chronically hold us back. Belsky offers the example of being overly self-reliant and not sharing ideas in order to get good feedback. Another example is the "bias for action", for which Belsky makes the case that all successful creative professionals and teams have, even if it is not a natural way to think for most people.

The writing style is conversational, making the book a quick and pleasant read. The content is sprinkled with interesting anecdotes to support the pragmatic advice. There are a couple of sections that feel disjointed, as if it were a series of blog posts rather than a book (which I expect would be more cohesive). However, that could also be because Belsky sometimes covers a lot of ground in few pages.

This book is full of calls to action for making positive changes in the way you think, work and even live. If you are still not sure if it is worth your time, check out the articles at [...]. If the postings there resonate with you, then you will definitely like the book.