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

Links to Topics Mentioned in this Podcast

@ScottSonenshein

http://www.scottsonenshein.com/

Not Impossible by Mick Ebeling

Ron Johnson

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