Black Box Thinking: Marginal Gains and the Secrets of High Performance

(Paperback)

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The Sunday Times No.1 Bestseller

From the Bestselling Author of BOUNCE.

What links the Mercedes Formula One team with Google

What links Team Sky and the aviation industry

What connects James Dyson and David Beckham

They are all Black Box Thinkers.

BLACK BOX THINKING is a new approach to high performance, a means of finding an edge in a complex and fast-changing world. It is not just about sport, but has powerful implications for business and politics, as well as for parents and students. In other words, all of us.

Drawing on a dizzying array of case studies and real-world examples, together with cutting-edge research on marginal gains, creativity and grit, Matthew Syed tells the inside story of how success really happens - and how we cannot grow unless we are prepared to learn from our mistakes.

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 - JAMES DYSON, DESIGNER, INVENTOR & ENTREPRENEUR

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 - DANIEL PINK, AUTHOR OF DRIVE & TO SELL IS HUMAN

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 - HOWARD JACOBSON, WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE

Author Bio

Matthew Syed is a leading columnist and feature writer for The Times. He makes authored features for the BBC current affairs programme Newsnight and regularly appears on CNN International and World Service TV. He also gives business talks to major international corporate clients including Goldman Sachs, BP, Rolls-Royce, McKinsey, Manchester United, Oxford University and Vodafone. Before becoming a writer Matthew was the England table tennis number one for almost a decade, three times Commonwealth Champion, and he twice represented Great Britain in the Olympic Games.

Matthew Syed's first book, Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice, was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and became a UK best-seller.