Management is a language--and fluency requires practice, but also some outside instruction. Few writers describe successful business concepts as clearly as Daniel Coyle. The New York Times best-selling author of The Culture Code and The Talent Code is known for identifying spot-on analogies in unlikely groups--a gang of jewel thieves, a kindergarten class--to offer relevant lessons for the manager and the managed alike. We snatched three teachable moments from Coyle's work to put together this test of your know-how. Each right answer earns 10 points.
1. In The Culture Code, Coyle uses which phrase to describe the method, concept, or quality that allowed four-person teams of kindergartners to outperform four-person teams of business school students in a contest?
A. The power of play
B. Iterative design strategy
C. Trying a bunch of stuff together
D. Failing fast
Answer: C
Coyle uses this plain-as-Twain phrase to describe how kindergartners bested B-schoolers at Peter Skillman's Marshmallow Design Challenge. Now director of design at Amazon Web Services, Skillman created the contest for his postgrad research at Stanford, and then popularized it in a 2006 TED Talk.
