Why do some succeed with so little, while others fail with so much?

Scott Sonenshein, author of the book, Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less and Achieve More than You Ever Imagined, thinks it happens because we get caught up in a mindset of chasing. A Professor of Management at Rice University, Scott is also a strategy consultant for organizations in healthcare, education, manufacturing, and technology.

Drawing on research from psychology and management, Scott makes a case for doing more with less, what he calls stretching with what you have -- and it is a far cry from being cheap or refusing ever to spend.

In this interview, we talk about:

How waiting for the perfect tool gives us an excuse to delay working on our goals

Why chasing after resources can cause us to get caught up in destructive comparisons

Looking beyond the conventional uses for a particular resource and why that matters

How reflecting on scarcity can help us get more out of the resources we already have

How a mindset and culture of ownership lets us solve problems more creatively

How stretching with the resources we have is a skill we can teach and learn

How a culture of belief in people to solve problems creatively makes all the difference

Why stretching is a far cry from being cheap and more about being frugal

Why more expertise, knowledge, and practice does not equal greater problem solving

How we approach problems more narrowly when we look only for expertise

How and why outsiders bring a fresh perspective to problem solving

Ways we can cultivate an outsider perspective in ourselves

How, when we overplan, we count on a world that may or may not exist

Why, in turbulent environments, successful organizations are both fast and accurate

The power of running lots of small experiments to learn

How we can leap without looking by doing and gathering data without learning from it

How sticking to our plans at any cost can work against our own best interests

The creativity the comes from unthinkable combinations

How stretching makes a difference in how we live our lives

Episode Links

@ScottSonenshein

http://www.scottsonenshein.com/

Not Impossible by Mick Ebeling

Ron Johnson

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