Black Box Thinking
On sale
10th September 2015
Price: £20
What links the Mercedes Formula One team with Google?
What is the connection between Dave Brailsford’s Team Sky and the aviation industry?
What links the inventor James Dyson and the basketball player Michael Jordan?
They are all Black Box Thinkers.
Whether developing a new product, honing a core skill or just trying to get a critical decision right, Black Box Thinkers aren’t afraid to face up to mistakes. In fact, Black Box Thinkers see failure as the very best way to learn. Rather than denying their mistakes, blaming others, or attempting to spin their way out of trouble, these institutions and individuals interrogate errors as part of their future strategy for success.
How many of us can say that we have such a healthy relationship with failure?
Learning from failure has the status of a cliché, but this book reveals the astonishing story behind the most powerful method of learning known to mankind, and reveals the arsenal of techniques wielded by some of the world’s most innovative organizations. It also reveals the dangers of failing to learn from mistakes. In healthcare, hundreds of thousands of patients die from preventable medical errors every year due to a chronic lack of Black Box Thinking
Using gripping case studies, exclusive interviews and really practical takeaways, Matthew Syed – the award-winning journalist and best-selling author of Bounce – explains how to turn failure into success, and shows us how we can all become better Black Box Thinkers.
What is the connection between Dave Brailsford’s Team Sky and the aviation industry?
What links the inventor James Dyson and the basketball player Michael Jordan?
They are all Black Box Thinkers.
Whether developing a new product, honing a core skill or just trying to get a critical decision right, Black Box Thinkers aren’t afraid to face up to mistakes. In fact, Black Box Thinkers see failure as the very best way to learn. Rather than denying their mistakes, blaming others, or attempting to spin their way out of trouble, these institutions and individuals interrogate errors as part of their future strategy for success.
How many of us can say that we have such a healthy relationship with failure?
Learning from failure has the status of a cliché, but this book reveals the astonishing story behind the most powerful method of learning known to mankind, and reveals the arsenal of techniques wielded by some of the world’s most innovative organizations. It also reveals the dangers of failing to learn from mistakes. In healthcare, hundreds of thousands of patients die from preventable medical errors every year due to a chronic lack of Black Box Thinking
Using gripping case studies, exclusive interviews and really practical takeaways, Matthew Syed – the award-winning journalist and best-selling author of Bounce – explains how to turn failure into success, and shows us how we can all become better Black Box Thinkers.
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Reviews
Creative breakthroughs always begin with multiple failures. This brilliant book shows how true invention lies in the understanding and overcoming of these failures, which we must learn to embrace
Matthew Syed has issued a stirring call to revolutionise how we think about success -- by changing our attitude to failure. Failure shouldn't be shameful and stigmatising, but exciting and enlightening. Full of well-crafted stories and keenly deployed scientific insights, BLACK BOX THINKING will forever change the way you think about screwing up
Retrieval was Matthew Syed's forte when he was England's number one table tennis player. You couldn't get anything past him. And retrieval is the subject of this extraordinarily wide-ranging book. Retrieval of hope, retrieval of experience - not just a true sportsman's determination to retrieve success from the lessons of failure, but a true humanitarian's too. A book that dares us to do better
Excellent . . . Together with his pervious book it adds up to a persuasive account of human accomplishment . . . This book is a sustained argument about the damage done by the growth of blame culture in Britain and America . . . Syed's lively book is a powerful warning of the damage such a culture can do.
An extraordinary, inspirational book which reveals how great performers and teams are driven by an insatiable curiosity for marginal gains, together with the intellectual courage to challenge their most cherished assumptions