Peter Sims

Biography

Peter Sims is a best-selling author and entrepreneur. His latest book is Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, from Simon & Schuster: Free Press, and he was the coauthor with Bill George of True North, the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek best-seller.

He has had a long collaboration with faculty at Stanford`s Institute of Design (the d.school), and received an M.B.A. from Stanford Business School where he established a popular class. Previously, he worked in venture capital with Summit Partners, including as part of the team that established Summit`s European Office in London.

His articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Tech Crunch, The Financial Times, and as an Expert blogger for Fast Company. He frequently speaks or advises at corporations, associations, and universities, including Google, Eli Lilly, Pixar, ConAgra, Cisco Systems, Current TV, Amazon, and Stanford University.

A graduate of Bowdoin College, he lives in San Francisco and his great-great-great grandfather, Jacob Gundlach, founded Gundlach Bundschu (GunBun) in Sonoma, California`s oldest family-owned winery, which is run today by his cousins who, unlike Peter, know a lot about wine.

Publications

What do Apple CEO Steve Jobs, comedian Chris Rock, prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, and the story developers at Pixar films all have in common? Bestselling author Peter Sims found that all of them have achieved remarkable results using a surprisingly similar approach: methodically taking small, experimental steps. Rather than believing they have to start with a big idea or plan a whole project out in advance, trying to foresee the final outcome, they make a methodical series of little bets about what might be a good direction, learning critical information from lots of little failures and from small but significant wins that allow them to find unexpected avenues and arrive at extraordinary outcomes.

Based on deep and extensive research, Sims discovered that productive, creative thinkers and doers -- from Ludwig van Beethoven to Thomas Edison and Amazon`s Jeff Bezos -- practice a set of simple but often counterintuitive experimental methods -- such as failing quickly to learn fast, trying imperfect ideas, and engaging in highly immersed observation -- that free their minds, opening them up to making unexpected connections and perceiving invaluable insights. These methods also unshackle them from the constraints of conventional planning, analytical thinking, and linear problem solving that our educational system overemphasizes at the expense of creativity.

Reporting on a fascinating range of research, from the psychology of creative blocks to the influential field of design thinking so prevalent in Silicon Valley, Sims offers engaging and wonderfully illuminating accounts of breakthrough innovators at work, including how Hewlett-Packard stumbled onto the breakaway success of the first handheld calculator; the ingenious storyboarding process at Pixar films that has been the key to their unbroken streak of box office successes; the playful discovery process by which Frank Gehry arrived at his critically acclaimed design for Disney Concert Hall; the aha revelation that led Amazon to pursue its pioneering affiliates program; and the U.S. Army`s innovative approach to counterinsurgency operations.

Fast paced and as entertaining as it is thought provoking, Little Bets offers a whole new way of thinking about how to break away from the narrow strictures of the methods of analyzing and problem solving we were all taught in school so that we can navigate uncertain situations and unleash our untapped creative powers.

Titles

Little Bets

What do Thomas Edison, Chris Rock, and Jeff Bezos all have in common?

Answer: An understanding that the biggest ideas spring forth from a series of small discoveries, reworked to achieve a great result.

Based on over 200 interviews with successful creators and innovators, Sims demonstrates that the kind of linear problem-solving and fear of failure we were conditioned to embrace actively thwarts creativity. Whether it`s Steve Jobs or architect Frank Gehry or the `braintrust` at Pixar, there is no complete plan or vision at the outset. Rather, through a process of trying and failing in incremental ways, they gain critical information as they go from one small, experimental step to the next -- which eventually lead to extraordinary breakthroughs. These so-called "little bets" helped spark the ideas that led to companies like Twitter and blockbuster movies like the Toy Story franchise. We can learn to think and work like those we think of as geniuses -- failing fast to learn quickly, trying imperfect ideas, focusing on finding problems rather than solving them, and practicing highly immersed observation -- to turn our own little bets into big successes.

Authentic Leadership

Based on the lessons learned from 125 of the world`s most-respected entrepreneurs and leaders profiled for TRUE NORTH: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, including Charles Schwab, Starbuck`s founder Howard Schultz, CEO of Palm Inc. Donna Dubinsky, Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric, Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, Andrea Jung CEO of Avon Products, and Narayana Murthy of Infosys. Themes include: overcoming life crucibles and setbacks, clarifying personal values and motivations, developing effective support structures, using your life story to motivate and inspire others, approaches for staying grounded, and personal leadership development plans.