Bookpleasures.com is thrilled to welcome A.J. Thoresen, author of  Decoding Efficiency and Innovation: How Systems, Minds, and Nations Shape Our Future.

This book examines the delicate balance between structure and creativity, demonstrating that true progress is not achieved through solitary genius or aggressive optimization.

Instead, it emerges from the alignment of three fundamental forces: the systems we create, the minds we develop, and the nations we build.

In a world increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence, global competition, and organizational complexity, few thinkers offer a framework as relevant and insightful as A.J. Thoresen.

Her work investigates how these three elements interact to foster innovation and efficiency, emphasizing the importance of their interconnectedness in shaping our future.

A.J.'s diverse background in engineering and finance  offers her a unique perspective.

With a BSc in Engineering and a Master's in Finance from London Business School, she combines technical rigor with strategic insight in her writing, which is certain to captivate readers.

Today, we sit down with A.J. to discuss the concepts behind her book, the tension between innovation and efficiency, and the importance of making wise decisions in an age of rapid change.

Norm: Good day, A.J., and thanks for taking part in our interview.

Every book has an origin story. What specific observation or moment in your career made you realize that the tension between efficiency and innovation was the critical topic you needed to explore?

Was there a particular company, news event, or even a personal frustration that served as the final catalyst for your decision?

A.J. I have long been interested in the tension between efficiency and innovation, as they have a counter intuitive nature. They are not opposites, but they do not always travel easily together.

Efficiency seeks to perfect what is known, while innovation reaches for what is not yet proven.

When efficiency dominates, it can suppress the very conditions that allow innovation to emerge, yet without efficiency, innovation cannot scale.

When artificial intelligence entered the public stage, both highly efficient and innovative, I felt compelled to understand how businesses, minds, and nations balance these forces.

The book grew from that search. It is idea-driven and deeply researched, written to make sense of a world that is accelerating faster than most can read.

For many organisations, the concept of efficiency itself has become unclear. Some equate it with speed, forgetting direction. Others believe they are innovating when in fact they are only optimising.

Decoding Efficiency and Innovation was born from the need to clarify these confusions to ask what true progress means in an age where doing more often replaces thinking better.

Norm: How does the rise of AI and automation fit into your framework? Does AI enhance efficiency to such an extent that it poses a greater threat to human-led innovation, or is it a tool that can unlock new forms of creativity?

Where should we concentrate our efforts to ensure that AI benefits both efficiency and innovation?

A.J. Artificial intelligence intensifies the paradox between efficiency and innovation. It embodies both, yet also exposes their limits.

AI can execute tasks with extraordinary precision, speed, and consistency, qualities that redefine operational efficiency.

But this very strength can become a weakness if it narrows human imagination or discourages independent thought.

The danger is not that AI will replace us, but that we may begin to imitate it, optimising ourselves into predictability.

When that happens, human creativity becomes procedural rather than original.

Used consciously, however, AI can unlock new creative capacity. It can remove friction from work, accelerate learning, and expand the scale at which we explore ideas.

The key lies in how we design the relationship: humans must remain the interpreters of meaning, not merely the supervisors of machines.

Our efforts should concentrate on cultivating what technology cannot replicate: context, empathy, ethical judgment, and imagination.

These are the forces that give direction to intelligence. Efficiency will continually advance through automation, but innovation will only advance through awareness.

Norm: Your book presents "systemic wisdom" as a fusion of agility and resilience. Can you provide a real-world example where this balance was effectively achieved?

What design principles were crucial for its success, and can they be applied across different industries?

A.J. Systemic wisdom is the ability to design with intention structures that are precise enough to be efficient yet open enough to evolve.

In Chapter Five, I describe this as structural efficiency: perfection achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Balance is a living harmony, and as in nature, wisdom lies in knowing when enough is enough.

One example of this principle in action is Amazon. Its structure combines efficiency with agility: small, autonomous teams operating within a coherent larger system.

Decision-making is decentralised, yet alignment is maintained through clear metrics and long-term orientation.

The design is intentional, not accidental; it allows the company to move quickly without losing direction.

Yet even Jeff Bezos recognises that a well-optimised system can become blind to new possibilities. His call to "keep wondering" is a quiet but essential counterbalance to efficiency.

It acknowledges that efficiency, when left unchallenged, can become its own form of inertia.

Wondering curiosity without immediate utility is what keeps an efficient system alive and adaptive.

At a national scale, Singapore illustrates a similar equilibrium, where governance and economic design are engineered for both order and flexibility.

Toyota, on the other hand, demonstrates the strength and the constraint of continuous improvement.

Its discipline of refinement is extraordinary, yet it also shows how systems optimised for steady evolution can sometimes struggle with disruptive innovation.

Across industries, the design principles remain consistent: clarity of purpose, simplicity of form, and the humility to leave space for the unknown.

Structural wisdom is not an endpoint; it is a discipline of awareness that enables systems to be both excellent and surprising.

Norm: You criticize traditional corporate structures for unintentionally stifling innovation. What structural change would you recommend for a conventional company today? How can leaders implement this change without triggering internal resistance?

A.J. Most corporate structures were designed for control, not creativity. They optimise information flow upward, but rarely insight across.

The result is that innovation becomes episodic rather than systemic.

The most powerful structural change a company can make today is to intentionally design its culture, rather than treat it as an afterthought.

As Peter Drucker reminded us, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." Without cultural alignment, even the best strategies collapse into bureaucracy.

One useful way to think about culture is through the iceberg model: visible elements, such as policies and goals, sit above the surface, but the deeper layers — beliefs, values, and unspoken assumptions — shape real behaviour. Leaders must learn to work with both levels.

Vision, mission, and values should not be wall statements; they should become the architecture of daily decisions.

Psychological safety is central to this transformation. Amy Edmondson's four stages of psychological safety offer a practical map: inclusion, learning, contribution, and challenge.

Each stage builds trust and courage. When people feel accepted, free to learn, empowered to contribute, and safe to question, innovation stops being a slogan and becomes a natural outcome.

Norm: Bell Labs often serves as a prominent example in your Systems section. What lessons from its physical and organizational design do you believe modern tech campuses have misunderstood or overlooked?

If you were tasked with designing an innovation hub today, what elements would be non-negotiable?

A.J. Bell Labs remains one of the most remarkable examples of intentional design in innovation history. It was not only a research centre but an ecosystem built for intellectual collision.

Its long corridors and open offices were designed to make people from different disciplines cross paths daily.

Physicists, mathematicians, and engineers worked within the same physical and conversational space, turning chance encounters into discovery.

The design reflected a simple but profound truth: innovation flourishes when ideas can move freely between minds.

Many modern tech campuses imitate the appearance of Bell Labs' open spaces, creative lounges, and visible collaboration, but they often overlook its deeper structure.

The true genius of Bell Labs was not in aesthetics but in permeability. It balanced freedom with focus, and exploration with purpose.

Today's organisations tend to prioritise speed and comfort over depth and dialogue. They build spaces for work but not always for wonder.

If I were designing an innovation hub today, my non-negotiables would begin with structural permeability, a design that allows disciplines to overlap both physically and intellectually.

The second would be time for exploration, protecting cycles of slow thinking within fast systems. The third would be psychological safety, the cultural foundation that makes questioning possible without fear.

Norm: In the "Minds" section, you explore cognitive biases and creativity. Which bias do you think is most damaging to innovation in teams, and why? Have you seen any organizations successfully neutralize this bias?

A.J. One of the most damaging biases to innovation is what I call the illusion of progress, the belief that a company is advancing when it is only refining what already exists.

It often appears as incremental innovation: small, safe improvements that feel productive but rarely change the system itself.

The danger is subtle. Incrementalism gives teams the comfort of movement without the discomfort of transformation.

This bias persists because it feels rational. It aligns with short-term performance metrics, operational discipline, and the human desire for predictability.

But when every company follows the same logic, progress becomes relative rather than real; you are not ahead, you are merely not behind.

Over time, this creates entire industries optimising themselves into sameness.

No organisation is immune, but some have learned to counterbalance it. Apple under Steve Jobs is a defining example.

Jobs resisted the incremental instinct by focusing on what people did not yet know they wanted. His process was not driven by market validation but by internal conviction, vision preceding demand.

That required a culture capable of questioning even its own success.

SpaceX offers another kind of antidote. It innovates through iteration, but iteration serves a disruptive goal.

The company treats failure as data, not defeat, and builds systems where learning compounds faster than caution. It shows that efficiency and experimentation can coexist when risk is structurally integrated rather than avoided.

Ultimately, awareness is the safeguard. Innovation decays when organisations become too certain of what works.

The most creative teams institutionalise doubt; they design curiosity into their process.

Norm: You highlight the significance of creative collisions. How can remote or hybrid teams digitally cultivate this type of serendipity?

Are there specific tools or rituals you've observed that work particularly well?

A.J. Creative collisions are not accidents; they are the outcome of intentional design.

Physical proximity once made them easier, but the essence of a collision is not geography; it is the willingness to engage, to listen, and to build upon the unfinished thought of another.

Remote and hybrid teams can absolutely cultivate this energy, but it must be structurally built into the culture.

The most innovative organisations do not treat digital collaboration as a limitation; they treat it as a new medium for connection.

They design systems that make interaction habitual rather than optional.

One effective practice is the use of cross-disciplinary sessions that pair people who rarely work together.

When such encounters are protected time, not afterthoughts, they replicate the creative corridor digitally.

Some companies also use "open thread" platforms, where ideas are posted in their early form, and others are encouraged to expand or challenge them.

These digital collisions can often be richer than physical ones, as they remove hierarchy and allow for time for reflection before a response.

The key is rhythm. Serendipity online must have structure beneath it, rituals that invite curiosity, not just communication.

The most forward-thinking companies, often in the technology sector, recognise this. They know that creativity does not depend on shared walls, but on shared willingness.

When that willingness becomes culture, distance disappears.

Norm: You argue that innovation is not only about ideas; it's about making those ideas usable.

Which cognitive traits or habits enable people to bridge the gap between invention and implementation?

Can these traits be developed, or are they inherent?

A.J. Invention and innovation share a boundary but not a definition. You can be one without being the other, yet the most transformative people and organisations learn to bridge both. Invention is the act of bringing something new into existence. It begins with curiosity, observation, and the willingness to pay attention long enough for a pattern to emerge.

It is born from noticing what others overlook.

Innovation, by contrast, is what happens when that idea becomes usable. It is the translation of possibility into reality, the discipline of execution and adoption.

Many brilliant inventions never become innovations because they remain personal discoveries rather than shared systems.

The gap between the two can be vast and sometimes measured in decades, even within a single product or concept.

The traits that close this gap are perseverance, adaptability, and clarity of purpose. Inventors imagine what could be; innovators build the bridge that allows others to walk there.

One needs wonder, the other needs patience and courage. When these qualities coexist, progress compounds.

These traits are not fixed; they can be cultivated.

In Part Two of my book, I describe various types of inventive minds, some driven by aesthetics, others by necessity, constraint, or chance.

What unites them is intent: the desire to create and the persistence to refine.

Anyone can become both an inventor and an innovator if they stay attentive to what they sense, remain disciplined in what they build, and are courageous enough to persevere.

Norm:Your case studies cover Silicon Valley, Germany's Mittelstand, and South Korea's industrial policy.

Which of these models do you believe is most adaptable for emerging economies?

What cultural or policy changes would be necessary to facilitate that adaptation?

A.J. Of the three, South Korea's coordinated industrial model is the most adaptable for emerging economies.

It demonstrates how a nation can compound progress through clear missions, disciplined execution, and continuous improvement of capabilities.

Silicon Valley depends on deep venture capital and a cultural tolerance for failure that is difficult to replicate.

Germany's Mittelstand, meanwhile, relies on patient family ownership and regional craft ecosystems that take generations to mature.

South Korea's path stands out because it demonstrates how to deliberately build capacity within one or two decades when government, industry, and finance work in alignment.

To adapt this model, countries need focus, patience, and trust.

National priorities should be few and sustained long enough to take root. Education must connect directly to real industries, building skills that translate into capability.

Finance should reward long-term progress rather than short-term profit. And governance must be steady and fair, so that coordination remains collaboration, not favouritism.

South Korea's experience also reveals that competition and protection must coexist.

The state supported firms but tied that support to performance, pushing them towards global markets rather than domestic comfort.

The result was an ecosystem that learned quickly because the frontier continually tested it.

Yet the deeper truth is that every lasting model begins from constraint and identity. South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan all converted scarcity into focus and discipline.

Switzerland built reliability and quality from its neutrality and limited resources.

The Netherlands, much of which is below sea level, has turned geography into ingenuity, becoming one of the world's leaders in agri-food technology.

These nations succeeded not by copying others but by designing from their own limitations outward.

In that sense, the South Korean model is not a formula but a mindset. It represents structural efficiency at the national scale—few missions, clear compacts, and continuous upgrading—held together by trust, patience, and purpose.

Norm: You've advised governments on innovation policy.

What is the most common misconception policymakers have about fostering innovation, and how do you help them change their mindset?

A.J. The most common misconception among policymakers is that innovation can be achieved through short-term programmes or funding cycles.

Real innovation policy is not about projects; it is about patience. It requires a time horizon measured in decades, not election terms.

In Chapter Two of my book, I write that macroeconomics think in decades, while microeconomics think in quarters.

The same misalignment of time appears between governments and the economies they lead.

Many policymakers also confuse innovation with activity. They believe it can be engineered through incentives or slogans, but innovation at the national level is not a campaign; it is a culture of dynamic efficiency.

It means building the capacity to evolve continuously, not only to create new technologies but also to continually improve the system that creates them.

If I were to advise governments, I would encourage them to shift from the language of control to the language of cultivation.

Innovation policy should be designed like an ecosystem, where education, capital, governance, and trust mutually support one another.

Political change is inevitable, but the national innovation strategy must remain stable across different parties. Continuity, not consensus, is what carries nations forward.

Norm: With experience in engineering, finance, and policy, how has this interdisciplinary background influenced your understanding of innovation and efficiency? Are there any fields or disciplines that are currently underutilized in discussions about innovation?

A.J. My thinking has been shaped more by curiosity than by credentials. Engineering taught me to see systems as how structure determines behaviour.

Finance revealed how those systems move within limits, how capital and attention flow, and how short-term metrics can distort long-term value.

The policy offered a perspective on scale, showing how individual choices accumulate into a collective direction.

Together they shaped a habit of thinking in layers, always asking not only how something works, but why it matters.

What I have learned is that innovation and efficiency are not separate disciplines; they are two expressions of design, one exploratory, the other integrative.

True understanding comes from crossing boundaries rather than defending them.

The fields most underutilised in innovation today are those that study human meaning: philosophy, anthropology, and psychology.

We often speak of technology as if it exists apart from emotion and identity, but innovation ultimately begins in the human mind and ends in human experience.

The next frontier will not be faster machines, but a deeper understanding of how values, perception, and trust shape the systems we build.

Norm: How can we learn more about you and Decoding Efficiency and Innovation: How Systems, Minds, and Nations Shape Our Future?

A.J. Decoding Efficiency and Innovation: How Systems, Minds, and Nations Shape Our Future is available through major booksellers and online platforms, including Amazon.

Readers can also find it and share their reflections on Goodreads.

More about my work can be found at ajthoresen.com, where I plan to share occasional reflections on innovation, systems, and human capability.

The book is part of an ongoing exploration rather than a conclusion—an invitation to think more deeply about how we create, organise, and progress.

Norm: As we conclude our interview, what is one idea from the book that you hope readers take into their daily lives—whether they are CEOs, teachers, or students?

How can they begin applying it starting tomorrow?

A.J. If there is one idea I hope readers take with them, it is to pause and ask what efficiency truly means.

We live in an age that moves faster than our ability to think; yet, progress without understanding is merely acceleration.

The book is, in many ways, a small civilisational map.

It begins with the modern world of business, where leaders and organisations utilise what already exists, and how effectiveness complements the equation of efficiency.

It moves through the breakthroughs of history, revealing that innovation has many forms: it can be visionary or pragmatic, urgent or patient, born of constraint or care.

And it ends with nations and technologies, artificial intelligence, quantum systems, and the infrastructures that will define our collective future.

But beneath all of it lies a single discipline: awareness. To pause, to understand, to align what we do with why it matters.

AI may transform everything, but it cannot tell us what is worth transforming.

The next decade will reward those who combine intelligence with judgment, speed with reflection, and innovation with purpose.

So whether you are a teacher, a student, or a leader, begin by asking one simple question: Are we moving wisely, or merely moving fast?

The difference between the two will define the future.

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors