Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries

"Loonshots is a brilliant and wonderfully entertaining book, an unstoppable read, full of surprises and rich with insight into how people create and nurture things that change the world. It’s also an important book. Bahcall, a physicist and biotech entrepreneur, is unfolding the secrets behind successes everywhere." —Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone and The Wild Trees

What do James Bond and Lipitor have in common? Why do traffic jams appear out of nowhere on highways? How did the Allies win the secret war against the Nazis? Why does the world speak English? What do the answers to these questions tell us about building more innovative teams?

Loonshots describes a new way to think about innovation: why a company's structure matters more than its culture. Safi Bahcall, a physicist and entrepreneur, applies the science of phase transitions to the behavior of teams.

The Nobel laureate Phil Anderson once captured the essence of phase transitions with the phrase “more is different.” The collective behaviors of liquids and solids are more than the sum of their parts. They are something new: phases of matter. The same molecules can behave in very different ways. Bahcall explains why the collective behaviors of people in teams and companies are something new: phases of organization. Small changes in structure can transform teams from nurturing breakthroughs to inhibiting them, just like small changes in temperature can transform flowing water to rigid ice. Understanding those phases can help us design more innovative teams.

Loonshots describes the science, draws on examples from Pan Am to Pixar, and offers rules that creatives, entrepreneurs, and managers can use to innovate faster and better. View Less