Mistakes That Worked: 40 Familiar Inventions & How They Came to Be

10-year-old grandson loved it.

As I think back over the years of my boring weekly staff meeting presentations, I should have (I could have) been much more creative. Thus…I’m urging you to do a cannonball into the deep end of the creativity pool—and inspire your team with a surprisingly fun book: “Mistakes That Worked: The World's Familiar Inventions and How They Came to Be.” If I were still a CEO, here’s how I would facilitate my next weekly staff meeting: STEP 1. Order three books and gift them to the three most creative team members. Assignment: Each person will pick one “mistake that worked” (an invention that documents how we can learn from mistake-making). Prepare a five-minute presentation on the mistake/invention—and then facilitate a five-minute “What can we learn from this?” Q&A. (Give a Starbucks gift card if they finish in 10 minutes or less.) STEP 2. Definitely…serve some fun food! Chapter 1, “Favorite Foods,” features a dozen “mistakes” that brought us these favorites: chocolate chip cookies, Coca-Cola, doughnut holes, fudge, ice cream cones, popsicles, potato chips, sandwiches, tea, and more! (Note: Here’s just one of dozens of fun factoids in the book: On Sept. 7, 1975, a church in Davenport, Iowa, landed in the Guinness Book of World Records for creating a 5,750-pound “iced lollipop on a stick.”) STEP 3. At future weekly staff meetings, assign one person to present the five-minute summary and facilitate the five-minute Q&A discussion. Extra credit if they include a “show-and-tell” of the actual “mistake/invention.” The book showcases several dozen memorable innovations: • THE FRISBEE. Did you know there is an annual competition for the United States Disc Golf Championship? • IVORY SOAP. Honest! The “soap that floats” was named by Harley Procter (as in Procter & Gamble) “while listening to a Bible reading at church one morning in 1879.” • PAPER TOWELS. This reminded me of the market segmentation discussion on Bounty Paper Towels in the brilliant book, “Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works,” by A.G. Lafley (former CEO of P&G) and Roger L. Martin. • Many More! Team members can showcase their favorite piggy banks, Levi’s jeans, Slinky toys, and Silly Putty! The Big Idea for Life-long Learning: We’ll make mistakes—so let’s learn from them. Something good may pop out like VELCRO, Post-it Notes, or even seeing eye dogs or trouser cuffs! (Note: Plan something special on February 11—National Inventors Day.) If you live close to Washington, D.C., plan a team-building day at the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum in Alexandria, Virginia. Or visit the National Inventors Hall of Fame in North Canton, Ohio. LOL! According to the author, in 1875 the director of the U.S. Patent Office “quit his job and suggested that his department be closed. There was nothing left to invent, he insisted.” PICTURE THIS! The illustrations are really fun! The VELCRO mistake features a hilarious color drawing of a cowboy on a bucking horse—riding “hands-free” on a VELCRO saddle! Another story spotlights a wedding ceremony with the bride and groom (an Englishman is the trend-setter who “invented” trouser cuffs). The scene with the officiating clergyman: LOL! And...Amazon says this book is perfect for ages 8 to 11. (It's also perfect for ages 18 to 80!) AND BY THE WAY—speaking of popsicles and boring staff meetings—the Heath brothers urge you to create extraordinary moments on a team member’s first day on the job instead of the opposite: “Imagine if you treated a first date like a new employee.” That’s from “The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact,” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. (I named it my 2017 book-of-the-year.) PLEASE TAKE THIS PLEDGE! Repeat after me: "No more boring weekly staff meetings!"

We got this from the library in November and my ten-year-Old daughter loved it! She’s always very fascinated with history, science and engineering, so a book about interesting inventions was just up her alley. My parents visited us during the time we had it and while we were visiting she became quite engrossed in this book. Then when it was time to give it back to the library my daughter told me she wanted a copy of her own. I told her I would put it on her wish list, but I actually forgot until I was shopping for some Christmas gifts for a cousin drawing and while buying a book for someone else Amazon said that the book and a selection of others were on a special temporary discount, so I clicked on the link to see what other books were on sale and wouldn’t you know? Mistakes That Worked was one of the books they were promoting! I was so excited, but not as excited as my daughter when she opened it up on Christmas morning! This is a paperback copy instead of a hardbound one like the library had, but it’s a newer edition so my daughter says it’s even better. I honestly only got to read snippets of it myself but I am intrigued and need to find a minute to sit down and read the whole thing. I highly recommend this book!

As an 11 year old, I thought this book would be boring when grandma checked it out. It actually caught me off guard and surprised me because it was interesting.

Good for kids, open there brains

It is fun to learn how inventions and "mistakes" came into existence. Where would we be without potato chip?s ... It encourages kids of all ages to think "what if?". Who knows what it will inspire them to create.

Very interesting and easy to read

My son is in Kindergarten and he is a factoid enthusiast. His reading abilities aren't up to his curiosity level yet but he's getting there. Like many kids, he gets frustrated and needs help remembering how resilient he is and that challenges, even mistakes, are a good thing. This book has delivered that message with very short chapters (we do 3-4 per bedtime session) and the abstract concepts are pretty well translated into more digestible pieces for even young kids. For example, in the chapter on chocolate chip cookies, the author notes several historical figures my kindergartener already knows who never got to eat them because they lived before they were invented. Plotting out the timeline of history and provided context to young kids is a challenge, and this book helped make it clear so that the inventions could be appreciated and contextualized. Plus, the facts were really interesting! We love that actual recipes are included in the book, which makes it interactive as well.

My son enjoyed flipping thru this book every now and then. They ate short stories and will small sketches to visually stimulate. The information is retained for a long time by my son and he comes up with it after a few days in random conversation. He enjoys this book and it asp gives him to think far, think bog and think to take risks and say its alright!

Was expecting it to be interesting for the kids but it tells you about some really random uninteresting stuff. Not what we were expecting

My 9 year old daughter loved reading this book. Highly recommend for older children. I think this is a good book to encourage children that making mistakes is not a bad thing and leads to discovery and progress.

Super livre

Lots of unknown facts, sometimes a bit naive in the way they are reported. My 5 year old son likes it very much although I suspect he doesn't get a lot of the language used. More suitable for 6-9 year olds