Looking into SuperFreakonomics,” the “explosive follow-up to Freakonomics” we receive this wisdom from the authors: “Good feedback is hard to come by and extremely valuable. Not only did we receive feedback on what we’d already written but also many suggestions for future topics.”
Authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dinner are reflecting in essence on an enterprise that began as a partnership where the economist (Levitt) and writer (Dubner) began packaging stories that illustrated and underscored a law of economic behavior which says people respond to incentives, though not in a predictable way, thus ushering in the “law of unintended consequences.”
Indeed, as they explain, the book was published before these powerful laws were associated with the freaky way people behave.
The outcome led to great ideas e-mailed in from readers. The book’s success also led to a strategic by-product – the authors as (paid) speakers on the lecture circuit and, in that context, to more reader recommendations of content for number two
These suggestions from readers brought about an enrichment of the content in book number two, which the authors claim to be better than book number one.
They claim to benefit from the economic phenomenon of cumulative advantage – “that is the prominence of our first book produced a series of advantages in writing our second book that a different author may not have enjoyed.”
So the lesson is about the value that arises from listening is bigger than the value of using the feedback to tune your operation so every year you get better and better – like Toyota does. In addition, you can get strategic by-products like the authors’ speaking gigs – the readers came to them – and useful ideas for a new-generation product or service.
The key point – it really pays to listen!