The Road to Reinvention by Josh Linkner

I recently finished reading “The Road to Reinvention” by Venture Capitalist and best selling author Josh Linkner. The cover of the book illustrates the innovation of the wheel in history. This jumped right out to me right when I picked up the book since we have grown accustomed to telling people “don't reinvent the wheel.” I suppose we should all be glad that the wheel has been reinvented so many times and it probably will be reinvented again.

Josh poses the argument that if we don't put ourselves out of business somebody else will. At the core of a successful organization, department, or individual is the drive to constantly innovate, change, and reinvent. He divides the book up into 8 core sections which are:

1. Let go of the past.
2. Encourage courage.
3. Embrace failure.
4. Do the opposite.
5. Imagine the possibilities.
6. Put yourself out of business.
7. Reject limits.
8. Aim beyond.

One of my favorite insights was the need to reinvent processes. Sometimes we get stuck assuming that innovation and reinvention need to happen in our product line and development. Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs happen when we take a bigger look at the way we do something and reinvent the process. Organizations need to stop doing things the way they have always been done.

I also appreciated a very short section of the book that talks to the need of creating a company culture to support reinvention. Specifically I thought this book put a rather complex topic like company culture, very simply, but suggesting that cultures are made up of rituals. While we often feel like culture is an intangible, rituals are something that we can both influence and often invent and control.

I would recommend this book to anyone who all entrepreneurs and business executives and any individual who feels like they need a change.