34 | MAY 13 • 2021
BUSINESS
T
ech entrepreneur and innovation
speaker Josh Linkner believes any-
one can achieve personal or career
milestones by taking small creative steps.
This mindset is the focus of his new book,
Big Little Breakthroughs, which launched
April 20 via independent publishing house
Post Hill Press.
For Linkner, 50, of Franklin, who grew
up in Detroit and is affiliated with Temple
Shir Shalom, his fourth book speaking to
creativity and innovation is a personal one.
It is available in hardcover or e-book form.
“This book is special to me,
” he says. “I
wanted to make it for a wider audience. It’s
not only for CEOs and business leaders.
”
Linkner says anyone can learn from the
lessons of Big Little Breakthroughs, which
has been positively hailed by CEOs of tech
giants and bestselling authors. The book is
shaped not only by his own career as CEO
of five tech companies and top-booked key-
note speaker, he explains, but by the expert
opinions of everyone from celebrity entre-
preneurs to award-winning physicians.
“It’s about how small, everyday inno-
vations drive oversized results,
” Linkner
says. “The whole notion of the book is that
it’s flipping the way we think of creativity
upside-down.
”
He says people often think of innovation
as a billion-dollar idea that changes the
world. His book counteracts that, painting
a picture that everyday innovators can
cultivate small daily acts of creativity —
“micro-innovations” — to build creative
capacity.
One way is to implement a 5% “creativity
upgrade.
” “Building your skills can yield a
very high creative result,
” Linkner said. “In
other words, 5% more creativity can yield
100% better business results.
” Instead of
believing there’s not enough time, money or
material to achieve a goal, he says to chal-
lenge those beliefs by giving just 5% more,
whether that’s mentally or physically.
The first half of his book, Linkner
explains, makes the case for everyday cre-
ativity. He highlights the latest research in
neuroscience and organizational behavior
alongside stories of people who are using
creativity to level the playing field. In the
second half of the book, he then shares
eight “obsessions” of everyday innovators
that serve as principles people can apply to
their own lives.
“What I discovered is that all of these
amazing people that I interviewed around
the world all tend to follow similar patterns,
”
Linkner says. Over the past two years, he
spent 1,000 hours assembling research and
expert opinion to include in this, his fourth
book. “I share these patterns in each chapter
with lots of rich stories, examples and tech-
niques.
”
Mindsets like “use every drop of tooth-
paste” and “fall seven times, stand up eight”
serve as metaphors that readers can live by.
Others, like “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
should be ditched, Linkner says. “They’re
not the obvious cliche approaches,
” he
describes. “They’re really fresh and different
and give people a new approach to cultivate
a skill.
”
WHY WAIT? ACT NOW
As for not fixing things unless they’re
broken, Linkner advises doing the exact
opposite by using the principle of “break it
to fix it.
”
“Why would you wait until something’s
broken?” he questions. “The notion here is
proactively examining what you’re doing
and how you’re doing it in a deliberate way.
”
Then, Linkner explains, the key is to
deconstruct one’s pattern to successfully
rebuild it. Linkner believes these principles
among others can be used by everyone,
from dentists looking to grow their prac-
tices to trial lawyers who want to be more
effective in front of a jury.
“
All human beings have creative abilities,
”
he says. “We were just born that way. It’s our
natural state.
”
Now, he says this way of thinking is more
important than ever as patterns are broken
by a new world shaped by the COVID-19
pandemic that requires people to learn dif-
ferent ones.
“We can no longer rely on what worked
in the past and expect the same results,
” says
Linkner, who plans to promote his book
over the next few months.
“There’s a timeliness to the book that’s
also helpful. I just know it’s going to make a
difference in people’s lives.
”
Tech entrepreneur and author reimagines
creative capacity in new book.
Break It to Fix It
ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
spent 1,000 hours assembling research and
expert opinion to include in this, his fourth
book. “I share these patterns in each chapter
with lots of rich stories, examples and tech-
paste” and “fall seven times, stand up eight”
serve as metaphors that readers can live by.
describes. “They’re really fresh and different
and give people a new approach to cultivate
Josh
Linkner