Making Ideas Happen

Scott Belsky, founder of Behance, holds that ideas are common but strong execution is rare, and that the ability to make ideas happen can be built by anyone willing to work on their organizational habits and leadership. He spent six years studying unusually productive creative people and teams, interviewing hundreds of successful creatives along the way. From that research he draws practices that often run against intuition: generating ideas in moderation while killing them freely, prioritizing by nagging, and encouraging conflict inside a team. Belsky argues that building a lasting capacity for execution matters more than an obsessive hunt for great new ideas.

Andreas Zhou, co-founder of Askable, still uses some of its productivity methods and credits it with lessons on escaping analysis paralysis and actually executing on ideas.