Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success

How did James Dyson turn 5127 failures in to a multi-million pound business?

What links the Mercedes Formula One team with Google?

What could prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths in the healthcare system each year?

BLACK BOX THINKING.

Award-winning Times columnist Matthew Syed’s previous book Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice was an international bestseller, selling over 100,000 copies through UK BookScan alone, and has been translated into more than 10 languages since publication in 2011. The book drew comparisons to Freakonomics and marked the arrival of a bright new talent in non-fiction: a fresh voice in the ‘smart thinking’ field, using sport to explore broader life lessons.

His follow up, Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success, sees Syed broadening his scope — from sport in to business, from politics to healthcare, from aviation to innovation, this is an examination of the transformative effect of a positive attitude to failure, looking at the success of 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 – rather than denying them, 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. They see failure as the very best way to learn.

Using gripping case studies, exclusive interviews and practical takeaways, Black Box Thinking 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. As well as exposing the dangers of failing to learn from mistakes, Matthew Syed explains how to turn failure into success, and shows us how we can all become better Black Box Thinkers.

Matthew Syed says: ‘The notion of learning from failure has many subtle and surprising dimensions that impact upon almost every area of human development – we can inspire a revolution in politics, economics, healthcare, our everyday lives and more through a transformation in the way we think about failure. The book explores pressing issues facing businesses, parents, and politicians, but also attempts to reinterpret big picture areas like cultural evolution and the nature of consciousness. Sport will also play a part!’

'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

‘Extraordinarily wide-ranging… A book that dares us to do better.’ HOWARD JACOBSON, WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE

'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