Dear Friends,

One quality that distinguishes big thinkers from the rest of us is their ability to traffic in analogies—to detect metaphors in familiar objects and humdrum moments. For instance, when I look at an ice cube melting in my glass of water, I see . . . uh . . . an ice cube melting in my glass of water. But hand that very same glass to a person like Safi Bahcall, and he sees the secrets to winning wars, discovering life-saving drugs, and inventing the iPhone.

That’s one reason I so enjoyed Loonshots, our latest NBIC selection. It puts you inside the mind of Safi Bahcall—just your average Stanford Ph.D. particle physicist turned McKinsey consultant turned co-founder of a cancer-fighting biotechnology company.

Safi has written a big idea book about, well, big ideas. Where do breakthrough concepts—he calls them “loonshots”—come from? Why are they so often rejected, dismissed, or left to wither? And how can we nurture ideas without throwing the rest of our organization into disarray?

For him, the answers to those questions lurk in that glass of water. Think about a molecule of H2O. At cold temperatures, the substance flows easily from a pitcher into the glass. But lower the temperature just a few degrees—and that very same substance becomes a solid, a rigid floating cube. These “phase transitions,” Safi says, also apply to organizations.

While leaders often focus on culture, small changes in structure can transform organizations the same way that small changes in temperature can turn steam into water or water into ice. Cultivating crazy ideas is one organizational phase; efficiently operating existing franchises is another. One phase isn’t more important than the other. They can and should coexist, just as the ice cube and water in the glass support and enrich each other.

If this seems abstract, fear not. Safi illustrates his points with a bevy of stories from World War II, Polaroid, the airline industry, and even the movie Toy Story.

Along the way, he’ll show you why you should love your artists (people who develop sweeping, high-risk ideas) and your soldiers (people who tend to the already successful parts of the organization) with equal fervor. He’ll show you why scientists and pharmaceutical companies believe “it’s not a good drug unless it’s been killed at least three times.” And he’ll offer lessons on how even large organizations can open their minds to radical innovation.

It’s an exhilarating ride this book, one that will help you launch your next big idea.

Daniel Pink