Simply Brilliant: The Competitive Advantage of Common Sense [Hardcover]

You need Fergus O'Connell's Simply Brilliant. Are you needlessly complicating your business decisions by paying too much attention to skill, management knowledge, experience or philosophies? None of these things, argues O'Connell, can hold a match to good old common sense.

You may have come across the expression 'it's not rocket science'. Launching, flying and returning the space shuttle is rocket science, and requires the application of complex scientific thought. But most of us aren't flight directors at NASA and the things we do aren't rocket science. Too often, we look for complex solutions when simpler ones would be more appropriate, easier to find and simpler to implement.

This gem of a book is the perfect antidote to the endless tomes about how to leverage your core competencies and think "outside the box". Instead, it advises you to look for simple problems, simple solutions and direct approaches. If there's a philosophy here, it's this: be nice to people you work with, and try to see problems from their point of view. O'Connell, who also wrote the classic business guide The Silver Bullet, has a wonderfully dry sense of humour, and pokes fun at any reader who dares to take themselves too seriously. A series of questionnaires are designed to reveal how able you are to see simple solutions to business scenarios, from a drop in customer satisfaction to overdue projects.

This is a manual of sorts: covering how to plan, how to prioritise, how to see projects through, how to remember the customer's needs. This is simple stuff, simply written. But don't underestimate Simply Brilliant's value--much of this stuff is forgotten in the rush of everyday business. As O'Connell says--the thing about common sense is that it isn't all that common in reality. --Sally Whittle --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reviews of first edition

Shortlisted in the business book category of WHSmith’s Book Awards 2002.

"For a change this guide tears down management as a complex science, reducing it to life saving basics. This book does a good job - it may just help to simplify your working life." Evening Standard, London

"Simply Brilliant is brilliantly simple... offers salvation"
Financial Times

"This gem of a book is the perfect antidote to the endless tomes about how to leverage your core competencies and think "outside the box"...This is simple stuff, simply written. But don't underestimate Simply Brilliant's value"
Amazon.co.uk official review

Life is complicated enough. Yet many people go out of their way to create hoops to jump through, wrestling with tough problems and calling on the latest management fad to find that elusive solution to a problem. But it doesn't have to be that way. The best ideas aren't always complicated.  The world is full of smart, experienced, skilled, brilliant people. However, many people – even smart ones – are lacking a set of essential skills that when pulled together can be termed "common sense". Simply Brilliant features a set of seven principles to make the bright better. Principles of common sense that can be adapted for attacking many of the problems that you encounter every day, be it in work or outside.  And for this all new revised second edition, the bestselling Simply Brilliant delivers a whole new section on getting things done in the minimum amount of time. So that you can produce outstanding results without having to work all night. Sometimes the smart need the simple to be truly brilliant

Here's a book that tries to make common sense more common!
Much of my adult life has been spent rubbing shoulders with smart people. In college, in every job I’ve ever been in, in starting my own company, these smart people have been colleagues, bosses and peers. Because my own background is in software development, many of these smart people have been at home in that discipline - a science that is immensely sophisticated, meticulous and complicated. I believe this experience is true not only of myself. More and more of us are finding our lives affected by these selfsame smart people and the things they make and do. Over the years a suspicion had gradually been growing on me. It is a suspicion that I have been slow to voice. However, as the years have gone by, and as the evidence has accumulated, I have finally come to the conclusion that despite smartness, expertise, skill, experience, genius – in some cases, some (many?) of these people are lacking in an essential skill. That skill is what I refer to in this book as ‘common sense’. ‘The trouble with common sense,’ the old saw goes, ‘is that it’s not all that common.’ That has very much been my experience. Despite all the smarts that are floating around the place, a lot of dumb things get done. These are things which, if we only applied some of this pixie dust we call common sense, would never have been allowed to happen. It is against this background that I have written this little book. It tries to set down a number of what one might grandly call ‘principles’ of common sense. Rather than trying to define common sense, it tries to identify a bunch of things which, if one were doing them, one would be ‘using common sense’. I don’t see these principles as being in any way absolute. Some other writer might have put forward a different set. However, I believe the principles given here can serve as a useful toolbox for attacking many of the problems that one encounters every day, be it in work or outside. Within work, I believe the application of these ideas will yield real benefits – hence, the title. To put things another way, this book may not be the only game in town, but it is a possible bag of pixie dust. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Simply Brilliant

The Bestselling Guide to Getting Things Done

 

 

"Just when we feel we can no longer cope with it all, someone writes a book that offers salvation ... Simply Brilliant is brilliantly simple - so much so that I may start coming to work again to get things done."
Financial Times

 

"For a change this guide tears down management as a complex science, reducing it to life saving basics. This book does a good job - it may just help to simplify your working life."

The Evening Standard

 

"Simply Brilliant could make a difference to huge numbers of managers…O'Connell's ideas for creating a better working environment are as simple as he claims and will provide welcome relief for anyone who is struggling to come to terms with the latest fad from the Harvard Business School...”
The Sunday Times - Book of the Week

 

 

1.      Many things in life are incredibly simple.

2.      There are a lot of smart people in the world (you’re probably one of them).

So why is it that so many truly daft things get done?

 

Simply Brilliant is the smart person’s guide to the incredibly straightforward stuff that may have been overlooked in the search for a complex answer. And new to this edition is a vital chapter on getting things done in the shortest possible time.

Sometimes the smart need the simple to be truly brilliant.

 

Fergus O'Connell has over twenty years experience in project management. He has worked with companies such as CPT, ICL and Retix, before founding ETP in 1992. ETP is Ireland's largest project management company specializing in knowledge and high-tech industries. Fergus is currently Chairman & CEO of ETP. His experience covers projects world wide and he has taught project management on three continents.