Rate this book

Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure (2011)

by Tim Harford(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1408701537 (ISBN13: 9781408701539)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Little, Brown Young Readers

review 1: I often thought that the 60s retro science fictions somewhat over-estimated the future: with interstellar travel, flying cars, people frequently travelling to the Moon & all that. There can be another more logical explanation: The projection of future was at per with the rapid advancement back then. Innovation has slowed down in recent decades. And this book validates my perspective.On surface, it sounds almost blasphemous. How could it be true, when we have achieved so much: efficient LED lights, DNA sequencing, micro-credit etc. But to give you a perspective, we landed on Moon more than four decades ago, physically human have not gone beyond till then.The book is based on a single idea: The world is complex & there is no pre-defined solution to all analogous situations. ... moreSo you have to be flexible, adaptive & explore new ideas even if they come with high rate of failure. This book is more like a thesis that keeps validating this case with different perspectives, anecdotes & examples. But trust me; it does not fall in the trap of redundancy like many non-fiction books do. Step by step, he has knit the anecdotes into one big principle.It’s really commendable the way Harford applied this principle in different topics like Iraq War, climate change, financial disasters, The Nazi vs British Air battle & the success of the likes of Google. This proves the grand view he has taken on the topic & the unanimous application of the principle. Our innovations are concentrated on small-scale problems like the new cell-phone app or the latest advertising tool. But the advancement did not pick up when it comes to grand & complex problems like climate change, economic volatility, global poverty, renewable energy source & ebola vaccine. Harford argued that good ideas are often lost due to bureaucracy, lack of “right incentive” & financial complexities. He also provided some solutions & policies that increase adaptability & encourage innovation like: small-scale experimentation, carbon-tax, bottom-up structure, government grants etc.I liked how Harford applied Darwinian evolution in the game of innovation. Through trial & error, the disruptive innovations are selected by the market itself. Diversity allows for a lot of players to experiment and the more players there are, the higher the chance for a dazzling innovation. This, he mentioned as “Selective Pluralism”, doing diversified experimentation in small scale, so that you can magnify the ones that succeeds, and rejects the one that fails without any big catastrophe.Some people compare Harford’s writings with Malcolm Gladwell’s. I think Harford is more systematic & focused whereas Gladwell writes about sensationalized issues with a dramatized page-turning approach. This book is a perfect synthesis of so many disciplines: psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, physics, mathematics, political science, and economics. Yet the complex problems like the recession was explained so easily. To me, this is certainly one of those eye opening books that provided me with a lot of learning & perspective. The only problem I have is with the naming of the book; it sort of sounds like a self-help material (after all you have to justify not giving a five star :p). All in all, one of the great non-fictions I have read.
review 2: The failure meme is a popular one these days. It's ok to fail. jK Rollings gave a great speech on it. But is more a warning than an encouragement. Lots of things fail. Your project will probably be one of them. Hartford does not break much new ground here. This is more of a recap of recent books on risk and behavioral economics. In sum; be numerate. Test and keep track of what works. Get better feedback loops. Nudging works. less

Download links for: Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure

Advertising