The best books of the year summarised by Kevin Duncan. For training or speaking, do get in touch. More detail at greatesthitsblog.com

1. 13 FROM 13
THE BEST BOOKS OF 2013

2. WHAT IS IT?
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A library of over 200 books
A blog
A series of printed books
iphone and ipad apps
One-page summaries
One-sentence summaries
Training programmes
Speeches
A fertile source of new ideas

3. THE BIG THEMES

4. MALCOLM GLADWELL
David And Goliath
Competition isn’t always as
lopsided as it seems, because
being at a disadvantage
could actually be an
advantage.

5. MALCOLM GLADWELL
David And Goliath
 People fundamentally misunderstand the meaning
of advantages and disadvantages.
 The book uncovers the hidden rules that shape the
balance between the weak and the mighty, and
the powerful and the dispossessed.
 It is sub-titled Underdogs, misfits and the art of
battling giants.
 Underdogs develop hidden talents to gain an
advantage. Often they are tougher and more
ingenious than supposedly more powerful people.
 Conversely, having advantages can sometimes
prove a disadvantage. Rich parents have
everything, but can struggle to provide a moral or
financial compass for their children.
 As such, a degree of misfortune can be a
tremendous asset – what the author calls desirable
difficulty or relative deprivation.

6. TO SELL IS HUMAN
Dan Pink
Selling is no longer solely the
domain of
salespeople, because we are
all trying to move each other
in some way or another.

7. TO SELL IS HUMAN
Dan Pink
 We are all in sales now - trying to ‘move’ the
other’s point of view
 We spend 40% of our time ‘Non-sales selling’. The
forces behind it are:
 Entrepreneurship
 Elasticity (flexible skills)
 Ed-Med (the two fastest-growing industries)
 The rules now are:
 Attunement: being in harmony with people
 Buoyancy: a resilient outlook
 Clarity: making sense of murky problems and
solving them

8. THE NEW DIGITAL AGE
Schmidt & Cohen
Soon most of the world will be
online, and so technology will
influence almost every
personal and state activity.

9. THE NEW DIGITAL AGE
Schmidt & Cohen
 Technology is no panacea for the world’s ills, but
smart use of it can make a world of difference.
 The virtual world will not overtake the existing world
order, but it will complicate almost every behaviour.
 States will have to practice two foreign policies and
two domestic policies – one for the virtual world and
one for the physical world – and they may appear
contradictory.
 With the spread of connectivity and mobile phones
around the world will give citizens more power than at
any other time in history.
 The internet is among the few things humans have
built that they don’t truly understand.
 Soon everyone on earth will be connected – there
are 2bn online with 5bn more set to join.
 Virtual statehood reduces the importance of scale
and provides everyone with a voice. A world with no
delete button creates many legislative dilemmas

10. QUIET
Susan Cain
Introverts have a powerful role
to play in a world that can’t
stop talking, so nurture them
and pay attention to what they
say.

11. QUIET
Susan Cain
 It’s time for everyone to listen, and understand the
power of introverts. Quiet can be good.
 Business, and society in general, predominantly favours
‘loud’ people. That usually means being ‘outgoing
and fun’, being able to pitch well, and offering up a
‘takeaway box’ of what you are going to contribute.
 And yet around a third of us are introverts. Where it
gets confusing is that many true introverts often
behave in an unnaturally (for them) extrovert way
(particularly at work) simply in order to fit in, but this
usually makes them very uncomfortable.
 They can also be extremely convincing at
it, particularly if they are high Self-Monitors – they have
a keen awareness of what they like and regularly finetune their behaviour, but there can also be
Behavioural Leakage, in which tell-tale introvert
signs, such as a quick glance, can be detected by the
most observant.

12. CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

13. DECODED
Phil Barden
Decision science is not smoke
and mirrors – it can be applied
in a practical way if properly
understood.

14. DECODED
Phil Barden
 Our autopilot (implicit, system 1) has a far greater
bearing on purchasing decisions than many think.
Behavioural economics has been saying this for
some time. This is effortless, automatic, fast action.
 The pilot (system 2, explicit) is the
rational, apparently controlled process that is usually
mentioned in research as a reason to buy – this is
often misleading since people can’t even explain it
themselves.
 What fires together wires together: the autopilot
brain receives 11 million bits of information a second.
There are three main purchasing principles:
1. Tangibility: tangible signals trigger heuristics
2. Immediacy: the autopilot prefers immediate
rewards, not future ones
3. Certainty: autopilot prefers safe, certain choices
 Purchasing involves a decision between reward
(ownership) and pain (price): the brain offsets the
two to create a ‘net value’. trigger pain signals.

15. CONTAGIOUS
Jonah Berger
Your product or idea is more
likely to catch on if you give it
social currency, make it useful
and emotional, and wrap it in
an engaging narrative.

16. CONTAGIOUS
Jonah Berger
You can increase the chances of your idea catching on
by following six steps:
Social currency: we share things that make us look good
Triggers: top of mind leads to tip of tongue
Emotion: when we care, we share
Public: if it’s built to show, it’s built to grow
Practical value: it has to be news you can use
Stories: things built into narratives are more engaging

17. DECISIVE
Chip and Dan Heath
You can make better choices
by widening your
options, testing your
assumptions, attaining
distance before deciding, and
preparing to be wrong.

18. DECISIVE
Chip and Dan Heath
Widen your options
Reality-Test your assumptions
Attain distance before deciding
Prepare to be wrong
 Stage 1 means avoiding a narrow time frame,
multitracking (considering more than one option
simultaneously), and finding someone who has
already solved your problem.
 Stage 2 involves considering doing the opposite,
zooming in and zooming out (big picture and detail),
and ooching (a Southern US word for running small
experiments to test theories).
 Stage 3 includes overcoming short-term emotion
and honouring your core priorities.
 Stage 4 is bookending the future (setting a range of
outcomes from very bad to very good) and setting
up tripwires.

19. MAKERS
Chris Anderson
The internet is transforming the
way we manufacture – we can
all be makers now.

20. MAKERS
Chris Anderson
 Astonishing developments in technology, such as 3D
printing and open hardware, are combining with a new
frame of mind to generate a new maker economy.
 This could all lead to a third industrial revolution, in which
a series of cottage industries begin to replace
conventional large-scale manufacture.
 Being able to do something on a desktop changes
everything.
 We’re all designers now - we might as well get good at it.
 Suddenly the old rules of production aren’t true:
 Variety is free: it costs no more to make every product
different than to make them all the same
 Complexity is free: minutely detailed products with fiddly
components are fine because computers don’t care how
many calculations they have to do
 Flexibility is free: changing a product after starting
production is simply a case of changing the instruction
code – the machines stay the same

21. THE ART OF THINKING CLEARLY
Rolf Dobelli
You can make better choices
by understanding the
cognitive biases to which we
all succumb.

22. THE ART OF THINKING CLEARLY
Rolf Dobelli
Social proof: if other people do something foolish, so do we.
Sunk cost fallacy: investment or ownership warps our estimate
of value.
Confirmation bias: we use as evidence what we want to see.
Story bias: a good narrative makes us fall for things.
Illusion of control: you control less than you think.
Paradox of choice: the more choice we have, the less we
make a decision.
Coincidence: there is an inevitably about unlikely events.
Gambler’s fallacy: there’s no balancing force of the universe.
Winner’s curse: curb enthusiasm - your ‘luck’ will change.
Loss aversion: bad events strike harder than good ones.
Hedonic treadmill: be careful what you wish for – it’s never
that satisfying when you get there.
Affect heuristic: you’re a slave to your emotions and always
make shortcuts.

23. CREATIVITY

24. INSIDE THE BOX
Boyd & Goldenberg
Thinking outside the box is
usually impractical – inside the
box is where practical and
exciting innovation lies.

25. INSIDE THE BOX
Boyd & Goldenberg
The best business innovations are right in front of you.
Creativity can be taught. It’s practical thinking, not
divine inspiration that causes innovation.
Systematic Inventive Thinking involves:
Subtraction: list the product’s main components;
remove an essential one, partially or fully; visualise the
result (no matter how strange); ask what are the
benefits or new markets for the new version.
Division: list the components; divide the product
functionally or physically; visualise the new version; look
for benefits and markets.
Multiplication: make the list; make copies of a
component; change one of the essential attributes of
the copy; visualise and look for benefits.
Task Unification: give a component an additional
task, either internal or external; look for new benefits.
Attribute Dependency: work out what is dependent on
what else (this is much more complicated).

26. PREDATORY THINKING
Dave Trott
Nothing exists in limbo and
context is everything, so you
need to out-think the problem
by changing a piece of it.

27. PREDATORY THINKING
Dave Trott
Creative is an adjective not a noun – you have to think
about it all the time and make ideas happen.
Life is a zero-sum game – you can’t have more than 100%
of anything.
90% of advertising doesn’t work – it’s not even noticed, let
alone remembered.
You can run from it or you can learn from it – learning isn’t
the same as being taught.
Less really is more – when his son combines his two
favourite foods (Twiglets and strawberry ice cream), it
doesn’t tastes twice as good.
Taste is the enemy of creativity – if it’s comfortable, it
won’t be distinctive enough.
Form follows function – get the brief right first, and then
the rest flows properly.
The human mind is our medium – we see things not as
they are, but as we are.

28. IMAGINE
Jonah Lehrer
Ideas come from sheer
persistence, but only when we
relax, so if you work hard
enough on something, and
focus on not being
focused, there will eventually
be an unconcealing.

29. IMAGINE
Jonah Lehrer
 Muses, higher powers and creative ‘types’ are
myths
 Creativity is not a ‘gift’ that only some possess – it’s
a catch-all for distinct thought processes that we
can all learn to use more effectively.
 It’s only after we’ve stopped searching for an
answer that it arrives.
 Breakthroughs follow a ‘stumped phase’.
 Trying to force insights can often prevent them–
ideas arrive when the mind is distracted or relaxed.
 Focus on not being focused.
 Ideas occur best in ‘third places’ – neither the
home nor the office.

30. WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM
Steven Johnson
Go for a walk, cultivate
hunches, write things
down, but leave things a bit
messy so that unexpected
links can be made - better
thinking will follow.

31. WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM
Steven johnson
1. The Adjacent Possible: coined by scientist Stuart
Kauffman, this refers to the nearest next steps that can
be made.
2. Liquid Networks: ocean life is so fertile because liquid
enables things to flow between each other easily and
cross-fertilize. Recreate this liquidity to solve problems.
3. The Slow Hunch: Aha! moments are unusual. Most
great ideas start with a hunch and slowly develop. If you
write down the rough idea, it is more likely to emerge.
4. Serendipity: when we dream, the brain is having a
clearout. Unrelated thoughts often come together in
‘generative chaos’.
5. Error: high productivity ultimately leads to high quality.
6. Exaptation: something extracted from elsewhere is
adapted for a new purpose. Gutenberg’s printing press
was an adapted wine press.
7. Platforms: coral reefs, beaver dams, GPS – things built
on other things are a great basis for innovation.

32. HOW TO USE
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Be inquisitive
Make the time
Understand the lines of argument
Take a view
Inform your work
Enjoy the debate
Ask Kevin to speak or train

33. KEVIN DUNCAN
More detail at:
www.greatesthitsblog.com
Ask Kevin to speak or train:
07979 808770
kevinduncanexpertadvice@gmail.com
Twitter: @kevinduncan