Leapfrogging ─ Harness the Power of Surprise for Business Breakthroughs

Challenges the idea that business success requires leaders to create predictability and maximize control
Demonstrates how embracing, cultivating, and harnessing uncertainty and unexpected events can inspire breakthroughs in all areas of business
Filled with real-world examples of what companies such as Intuit, Gatorade, Four Seasons, and Colgate have achieved through the power of surprise

How did Gatorade revitalize itself in the wake of Red Bull and Starbucks? How did Etsy come to be? What makes one company or brand thrive while others languish in today's fast-paced, ever-changing marketplace? There's no doubt hard work is involved, but Soren Kaplan shows you can't do it by simply creating a big vision and implementing a set plan. In his trailblazing debut, Kaplan gives business leaders the tools to do exactly what they're taught to avoid: embrace surprise—the new key to business innovation.

For Kaplan, breakthrough success is all about "leapfrogging." Instead of fighting against uncertainty, Kaplan reveals how to use it to break down limiting mindsets and barriers to change the game. Using his LEAPS process (Listen, Explore, Act, Persist, and Seize), leaders learn to recognize and harness surprising experiences and events as a way to create solutions that leap beyond the current expectations of customers, partners, employees, and the competition. By highlighting specific ways to transform both good and bad surprises into unique opportunities, Kaplan encourages leaders to compete by embracing counterintuitive ideas, managing paradoxes, and even welcoming failure.

Now is the time to challenge assumptions and reinvent what is possible. All organizations—from large corporations to those just starting out—have the potential to take a significant leap forward by turning today's increasingly uncertain environment into a tool for unprecedented success. Kaplan's Leapfrogging is the new handbook for the modern leader

Soren Kaplan has worked within large corporations, founded and advises start-ups, consults to global companies, and educates students and executives about the art and discipline of strategic thinking, invation, and leadership for business breakthroughs. His unique ability to uncover surprises that are "hidden in plain sight" helps leaders shift their mindsets to rethink and reinvent their organizations.As a Managing Principal of InvationPoint, Soren leads strategic initiatives and provides leadership development for organizations including Cisco, Colgate-Palmolive, Disney, Medtronic, Philips, Visa, and numerous other firms. He is an Adjunct Professor within the Imagineering Academy at NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands. He has a Ph.D. degree in Organizational Psychology and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, two daughters, and hypo-allergenic cat.