Please note I am not an expert in the topics covered by this book; rather, my perspective is that of an interested lay reader.
Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure, by Tim Harford (2011): At the very top of the cover of my edition of Adapt, a blurb proclaims, “Tim Harford could well be Britain’s Malcolm Gladwellâ€, and that is a very apt analogy to describe this book. Harford is an economist and Financial Times columnist, but here he tackles themes that reach well outside the business world: open-mindedness, flexibility, innovation, resilience. Similarly to Gladwell, the book cites a wide range of examples: the US Army in Iraq (used to illustrate organisational design/hierarchy); contests such as the Ansari X-Prize (encouraging innovation); randomised trials in development aid (decision-making based on evidence); nuclear power stations and the financial sector (how to engineer systems for resilience), and more. And similarly to Gladwell, it’s written in a lively, popular style. I’ve enjoyed Harford’s writing since I read his earlier The Undercover Economist, which used economics to explain everyday questions such as “why does my coffee cost so much?â€, while I was finishing university, and this book didn’t disappoint me. I had a passing familiarity with some of the topics discussed and thus didn’t learn anything radically new, but I was able to learn more about those issues (and pick up some useful trivia), while being alternately inspired, depressed, and entertained. Well worth a look.