What is the main message of ALIEN Thinking?

The main message of ALIEN Thinking is to challenge traditional assumptions and adopt a more innovative mindset.

Who is the author of ALIEN Thinking?

The authors of ALIEN Thinking are Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade.

Creativity

ALIEN Thinking Book Summary - ALIEN Thinking Book explained in key points

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ALIEN Thinking summary

Name: ALIEN Thinking
Rating: 4 (170 reviews)
Author: Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux and Michael Wade

Cyril Bouquet Jean-Louis Barsoux Michael Wade

The Unconventional Path to Breakthrough Ideas

4 (170 ratings)

18 mins

Brief summary

ALIEN Thinking is a guide to developing innovative ideas by adopting an outsider's perspective. Insights from diverse fields can inspire new solutions in your own. Written by Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux and Michael Wade.

Topics

Innovation Critical Thinking & Problem Solving

Table of Contents

ALIEN Thinking
Summary of 6 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 6

What’s in it for me? Make great ideas a habit.

Having good ideas is fun. There’s nothing quite like that feeling you get when inspiration strikes, and you suddenly notice that everything in your mind has fallen perfectly into place. If only it happened more often – right?

Well, that’s where these blinks come in. They lay out a five-step plan designed to help you have brilliant ideas at will. Combining insightful anecdotes from the world of business with practical and easy-to-follow advice, these blinks lay bare the thinking styles that underpin all creative leaps.

By adding them to your mental repertoire, you can learn to make inspiration a habit.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

what a rich Renaissance family can teach us about imagination;
how the CEO of Logitech cultivates disruptive ideas; and
what edible cutlery can tell us about paying attention.

Approach problems with fresh eyes.

India was facing a problem, and it wasn’t proving easy to solve: in the end, it all came down to numbers.

The country was using far more groundwater than it could afford to. But where, exactly, was the water going? And what was it being used for? That was the question Narayana Peesapaty asked himself.

The answer was simple, as it turned out. Thanks to government subsidies, Indian farmers paid next to nothing for electricity – meaning that there was no real reason for them to turn their water pumps off. More water led to greater yields of rice, and water was cheap, so it made little sense for them to try to use less.

So what could be done about the groundwater shortage? How could Peesapaty resolve this enduring problem?

This is the key message: Approach problems with fresh eyes.

What Peesapaty did was to look at the problem in a new way. He realized that the key reason farmers were using so much water was that it increased their yields of rice.

Anyone else would have lobbied the government to promote less demanding crops like millet – but not Peesapaty. He recognized that the market had created this issue, and he was determined to make the market solve it.

After nine years, Peesapaty found a way of turning millet into cutlery that could be eaten at the end of a meal; instead of just trying to encourage farmers to grow millet instead of rice, he had actively incentivized growing millet by developing a marketable new product.

What distinguished Peesapaty’s approach was the freshness of his vision. So how can the rest of us, whose insights have been dulled by weekly meetings and daily routines, cultivate this ability to pay fresh, renewed attention to existing problems?

There are a couple of strategies. One of the most important things we can do is to approach the problem from multiple angles. After all, Peesapaty only came to fully understand India’s water and rice problem when he traveled around, meeting farmers and trying to understand their predicaments.

In an established firm rather than a start-up, this might mean paying attention to your most innovative and “extreme” customers. IKEA’s designers, inspired by their creative and dedicated customers, often take part in furniture hackathons – striving to create the best new products out of existing pieces.

The insights they glean from these sessions are a key factor in the fresh attention they bring to IKEA’S offerings season after season.

Stepping away from a problem allows you to approach it from a new perspective.

In 2006, Dr. Mathias Döpfner, CEO of German media conglomerate Axel Springer, announced a bold new vision for his company: within a decade, he wanted digital revenue to account for over 50 percent of the firm’s total turnover.

At the time, this seemed very far-fetched – digital sales made up only a single-figure percentage of Axel Springer’s total revenues. Many were understandably skeptical about Döpfner’s plans, and enthusiasm was low.

Rediscover the power of your imagination, and unleash your creativity.

As children, we all possessed imagination in abundance. Back then, we ran around our backyards for hours on end, pretending to be astronauts and firefighters, mothers and fathers, doctors and nurses.

But something happened. Over the course of our schooling, rote memorization became more important than the ability to generate new ideas or exercise our imaginations – so, over time, our ability to imagine things got weaker.

Experimentation is key to developing breakthrough ideas.

If you’ve ever taken a train across France, chances are it was with a company called SNCF. They’re the giant firm in control of the country’s railways – but that doesn't mean that they can afford to be complacent. On the contrary, back in 2014 SNCF was facing a tricky situation.

In brief, the train journeys on offer to travelers had ceased to be competitive. Seen as overpriced and old-fashioned, the railway company was losing customers in droves to cheap flights, intercity buses, and even carpooling. The future of France’s railways seemed to be failing.

Innovative ideas are always in need of protection.

It’s easy to imagine that having a good idea is all it takes to succeed. You sit down with your pen and paper, brainstorm a little, have a eureka moment and – hey presto – you’re an overnight success!

Unfortunately, in the real world, things tend not to work out like that very often.

Use the ALIEN techniques in tandem to generate great ideas any time.

So far, we’ve touched on a few strategies for generating and implementing creative ideas – and putting them all together, you get the ALIEN technique.

Why ALIEN? Well, it’s an acronym. A is for attention – the ability to see the world with fresh eyes; L is for levitation – removing yourself from a situation, and approaching it again from a different perspective. I stands for imagination – envisioning future possibilities based on current situations.

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What is ALIEN Thinking about?

Alien Thinking (2021) is a simple guide to having great ideas. Rather than simply waiting for inspiration to strike, it lays out five key skills that enable anyone to innovate on demand.

ALIEN Thinking Review

ALIEN Thinking (2021) explores unconventional strategies used by successful innovators to solve complex problems and drive innovation. Here's why this book is worth reading:

Packed with practical tips and techniques, it empowers readers to think differently and come up with groundbreaking ideas.
Combining real-life case studies, research, and interviews with industry experts, it offers valuable insights and inspiration for anyone looking to innovate.
Its thought-provoking approach challenges conventional thinking and encourages readers to explore new possibilities, making it a captivating and stimulating read.

Best quote from ALIEN Thinking

To overcome the conditioning that values memorization over discovery, you need techniques that promote and revitalize your imagination.

—Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux and Michael Wade

Who should read ALIEN Thinking?

Disruptors hungry for new ideas
Business leaders eager to cultivate innovation
Anyone who wants more eureka moments in their lives

About the Author

Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade are professors of innovation and strategy at the Institute of Management Development in Switzerland. Together, they have collaborated with dozens of corporations, start-ups, and state agencies, helping them to generate and implement the ideas they need to succeed.

Categories with ALIEN Thinking

Creativity Career & Success

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