Chapter TwoCreativity and Counter-Flow

With Alex Gurn, Corrie Stone Johnson, Pak Tee Ng

Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas.

—Donatella Versace

Opposite Approach

Once you know where you are going and have people who are prepared to fight with you to get there, which way should you go? Should you follow the well-worn paths of those before you, taking trails that your competitors have already blazed? Or should you adopt a different or even opposing approach—what Robert Frost called in one of his most famous poems “The Road Not Taken”?1

In his book How the Weak Win Wars, Boston University Professor Ivan Arreguin-Toft examines what happens when weak armies prevail over opponents with far superior resources.2 Strong armies, he says, win ...

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