The Innovation Paradox

Previously published as "Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins"

In The Innovation Paradox, Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes argue that failure has its upside, success its downside. Both are steps toward achievement, and the two extremes are not as distinct as we imagine. In today's business economy, it's not success or failure — it's success and failure that lead to genuine innovation. History's great innovators, from Thomas Edison and Charles Kettering to Bill Gates and Jack Welch, saw failure as an important stepping-stone — and with this groundbreaking book, you too can learn how to become more failure tolerant, more risk friendly, and therefore more innovative. Today's most prominent businesspeople agree that The Innovation Paradox has the formula for failure and success down to a science,

Make no mistake: If you're looking to reinvent yourself, your ideas, or your business model, this book is your sure-fire way to start.

1. The Success-Failure Fallacy
• Tangled Line
• Says Who?
• Why Success Resembles Failure, and Vice Versa
• Failure Pride
2. The Agony of Victory, the Thrill of Defeat
• Like Making Love
• Peak Experiences
• Craving Excitement
• Crisis Lovers
• Sweet Adversity
• Management by Calamity
3. Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
• Bards of Failure
• Splendid Failure
• Productive Mistake Making
• Success Disguised as Failure
4. Nothing Fails Like Success
• Marooned by Success
• Everybody Hates a Winner
• The Personal Price of Success
• Feeling Like a Fraud
• Looking Back on a Great Future
5. The Success Hobble
• The Ashes of Success
• Roads Best Not Taken
• Don't Just Survive
6. Innovating with Attitude
• The Risk-Friendly Workplace
• Sprinters and Milers
• Wild Ducks
• Minnesota Mining and Mistake Making
7. Managing in the Postfailure Era
• Treating Success and Failure Alike
• Earning Empathy
• Sharing
• Barnraising
8. Fear Management
• The Underlying Fear
• Making Friends with Fear
• Putting Fear to Work
9. Samurai Success
• Winning Isn't Anything
• Zen Warriors
• Jackson's Way
• No Regrets
• How Do You Measure Success?
• Beyond Success and Failure

You come to this book looking for tips on innovation, but it is not what the book is about.

This is a book about that you're allowed to make mistakes! What else is new…?

Written with a light touch and pretty thin, it still failes to convey any groundbreaking or memorable meaning, but it can be read. The best part of the book is in fact the title.