Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to get unstuck and unlock your potential

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A few months before, the woman had terminal cancer, but she had just been told that she was in remission. Today, more than a decade later, she remains cancer free and works as a fitness instructor. It was a breakthrough of monumental proportions and one that would make Allison world famous. Adam Alter is a professor of marketing and psychology at NYU’s Stern School of Business, and the New York Times bestselling author of Irresistible and Drunk Tank Pink. A brilliant detective story about the sources of human creativity. I loved it. * Malcolm Gladwell * Clearly, innovation is never a single event. Allison spent decades studying the immune system before he hit on the insight that led to his miracle cure. It then took more time for him to understand and verify its implications. From there, he spent years pounding the pavement to gain acceptance for it. All that takes an enormous personal effort. A groundbreaking guide to breaking free from the thoughts, habits, jobs , relationships, and even business models that prevent us from achieving our full potential.

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Over the next two decades, he became a highly respected researcher and made some notable discoveries in the field of immune regulation. It was slow, painstaking work, identifying the myriad different receptors that govern the human immune system, decoding the structure of their proteins and inferring how they functioned together. My experience in later years showed that had I taken rest, just lay down in bed for three days tops, I would have easily become normal.

The field Allison pioneered, cancer immunotherapy, is now a major branch of medical science with thousands of people working to improve it and expand its use. Breakthroughs like of this magnitude are never routine, but they almost always share common attributes and we can learn a lot from how Allison overcame intense challenges to create a miracle cure. Allison was excited. He began to fly around the country presenting his results to all of the top pharmaceutical companies, but none showed interest. Over the years, they had spent billions on immunological approaches to cancer and weren’t ready to take another plunge. “It was depressing,” he told me. “I knew this discovery could make a difference, but nobody wanted to invest in it.” La solución propuesta por el autor se basa en un proceso que él llama: auditoría de fricción, un procedimiento sistemático para entender por qué una persona u organización está estancada y cómo avanzar superando tres fuentes de fricción: las emociones inútiles, los patrones de pensamiento inútiles y los comportamientos inútiles.

Anatomy of a Breakthrough by Adam Alter [PDF] Download - PSB Anatomy of a Breakthrough by Adam Alter [PDF] Download - PSB

If anything, he thought, CTLA-4 wasn’t a gas pedal, but a brake. So, just as he always had, Allison returned to his lab to figure things out and his research confirmed his suspicions. CTLA-4 didn’t stimulate the immune response, but shut it down.

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds. The same is true in the worlds of business, art, and film-making: before you strike gold, you need to spend a period of time exploring different options, approaches, and techniques. According to one study, most of us experience at least one hot streak during our careers—a period of unusual progress and consistent success—and those periods almost always follow a burst of exploration, followed by a concerted attempt to exploit or mine the best option that emerges during that first phase. The lesson from Berkoff and these hot streaks: assume nothing till you’ve considered the alternatives, and once you’ve sketched the lay of the land, pursue the best option with laser focus. 5. Different is often better than good. Yet it is just as clear, as Allison is happy to point out, that he didn’t do it alone. Many prominent researchers contributed to our understanding of immune regulation. It was a team of French researchers that discovered CTLA-4. Sarah Townsend showed that the immune system can fight cancer. Jedd Wolchok and his team recruited patients and performed clinical trials.