1: Prepare for the Unpreparable

“Any suggestion otherwise would be heresy.”

The subject of our inability to accept the large role of luck in our lives and business has been explored at length (and mathematically) by Nassim Taleb, whose books, Fooled by Randomness (W.W. Norton, 2001) and The Black Swan (Random House, 2006), explain, in great detail, how self-delusional we are by nature.

“Dr. Spence Silver had taken his first job at the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company.”

3M actually owes its very existence to serendipity. As detailed in Brand of the Tartan: The 3M Story: “Here was a company of entrepreneurs who thought they were embarking on a mining venture, who discovered that they had nothing of value to mine, and who thereupon became ...

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