Black Box Thinking

The Surprising Truth About Success

By: Matthew Syed

Narrated by: Simon Slater

Columnist for The Times and best-selling author of Bounce: The myth of talent and the power of practice Matthew Syed argues that the key to success is a positive attitude to failure.

What links the Mercedes Formula One team with Google? What links Dave Braisford's Team Sky and the aviation industry? What is the connection between the inventor James Dyson and the footballer David Beckham? 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, they 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, hand on heart, 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.

Their lessons can be applied across every field - from sport to education, from business to health. 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.

©2015 Matthew Syed (P)2015 Hodder & Stoughton

Worth reading

The book starts in an intriguing way and then develops a bit slowly, initially leaving you wonder where it will go. It then goes on to explain key human thought processes and behaviours (mainly around failure and how to learn from it) with quick introductions to theory and many practical examples, use cases. Worth reading.

Learning from mistakes. A must read for Everyone!!

This is a must read for everyone.. Except a small randomised control group 😂

Seriously, this is the best book about learning from failures.
it starts off talking about how the Aviation industry is based around learning from their failures, from crashes and near misses. Hence they have the Black Box for recording what happened in the lead up to a crash. But the culture of the Healthcare system is almost the exact opposite, they try not to investigate problems and learn from mistakes and deaths. Instead being worried about blame being attributed.

This book explains and extols the virtues of applying the scientific method to social concerns.
All geisters, social entrepreneurs, organisers, managers, staff, students, parents and you should read this and ensure that you create and utilise feedback loops in your organisations and life.

implementation

How to implement such cultural change and sharing system in large corporations in practice?

A great book

A great read. Great lessons on learning from failure. So many practical examples used. He really brings the lessons to life. Highly recommended not just for business leaders but parents too.

Supporting evidence for Design Thinking

Design thinking is about truly understanding your wicked problem and through itterative ideation, experimentation and with frequent testing trying to learn early and as often untull you have a minimum viable solution. Through small continuous tests you learn where you assumptions and hypotheses is correct as well as where they are failing. this book support the methodology behind design thinking and why it's so successful in solving complex real world problems. to learn is to fail early through experimentation and having the grit to push through and not letting your ego stand in the way. it's a great book with lessons you can apply in business and on a personal level.

Should be taught in all graduate studies

This is the kind of book all organizations could benefit from. It should be taught as a course for any advanced degree, and many undergraduate professional studies.

Insightful and enlightening

Provides a different perspective on approaching the world of failure .... Enables me in both my profession and life to accept failure as an inevitably to progress , to embrace upon occurrence and learn before striving.

Great book

Great awakening especially for leaders at whichever level on how we handle mistakes.
Embracing mistakes leads to growth and this can solve many problems organizations face or even as individuals ;how we come back after failing.

Such a great package

I loved this book. It brought attention to issues in our learning. I liked how it weaved together our mistakes, the importance and difficulty to learn from them and the success one can achieve through them.

Superb

Finely woven case studies, good structure for the need to understand the value of failure rather then diluting this into a cliched statement