Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

Adam Grant is a teacher at the Wharton School of Business in Pennsylvania being its top professor for seven years running. He was also named “one of the world’s twenty-five most influential management thinkers, and one of Fast Company’s 100 most creative people in business” (7). Grant is an organizational psychologist who examines the psychology of business and why some companies succeed while others do not. He challenges what people assume to be the best strategies for success, collaborating with those from different backgrounds and domains to expand his own knowledge.

Grant wrote Originals with the intent of sharing his findings on what it means to be an original person and how to create a successful original idea. Throughout the book, he remains humble, admitting to his own mistakes and challenging defaults and norms. Being a champion of originality in business, Grant is convinced that originals change the world and urges readers to find their own sense of creativity.

Grant uses several forms of evidence and experience in Originals to support his arguments. It is clear that he writes from a personal place, including anecdotes from his own life as well as those of personal heroes such as Martin Luther King Jr.