“Black Box Thinking” accompanied me to and from work for a few weeks and greatly enhanced my journey.
We will go into a little of the content later, but this was a book that very much spoke to me at the time, and it almost felt fortuitous that I was listening to it at the moment that I was.
I think I had been aware of Matthew Syed for some time – even having vague memories of him playing on television as part of the Great Britain table tennis team during one Olympics or another.
For some reason, I also felt that I knew of him writing some very well-received books with applications in both individual and business performance – but I knew I had yet to encounter his work in detail.
I recalled an instance on a course a couple of years ago where, as a delegate, I had just finished presenting on the human side of lean. Shortly after I had finished, the trainer turned to me and said: “Have you ever read “Black Box Thinking” by Matthew Syed?” Something in what I had described had resonated and caused her to link the two messages in her mind.
I had to sadly shake my head and confess that I had not – though I would answer the question in the affirmative now.
But what became apparent when I was experiencing this book was that it had become almost inevitable that I would – and exploring this will become the main thrust of this review and its associated thinking.
I want to float a concept, which I am calling Circles of Thought.
My experience interacting with “Black Box Thinking” was that Matthew Syed and I had been on similar thought journeys.
Although Syed had started on his course long before I, there were clear parallels. Many of the references that Syed was citing were very close to me because I had encountered them only recently. This level of proximity made me consider that the book was speaking to me personally – so I engaged with it at a much deeper level.
It is clear that in compiling “Black Box Thinking,” Matthew Syed’s research was both thorough and extensive.
The work begins with two examples of disaster, one from the medical field and one from aviation. The book’s central premise is the reaction observed in both areas during the reflective opportunity of the aftermath. One profession, with a collective cognitive dissonance, shuns the chance to learn and improve. The other discipline embraces it. Excellence, it seems, necessarily sits upon the shoulders of many previous failures.
This belief in learning from failure sits at the centre of everything that I believe about both personal growth and business operational excellence. Reading “Black Box Thinking” feels like an affirmation of everything I hold true. However, I must also consider that my views are fragile and can be rendered obsolete at a moment’s notice. The level of discipline required to achieve this level of intellectual freedom is the tricky bit – and one we may not even be wired up to reach.
But back to the sources – because this is what I found fascinating. I forget the exact chronology of my own journey, but let us see if we can sketch it out a little.
My forays into personal development eventually led me to buffer up against Jamie Smart. For those unaware of his work, Jamie has written two best sellers describing the benefits of inside-out thinking, entitled “Clarity” and “Results.” It was Jamie Smart that first made me aware of Nasim Nicholas Taleb. In turn, Taleb introduced me to the philosopher and thinker Karl Popper.
Simultaneously, a colleague spoke to me about a book called “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahnemann. This is a book that I am currently reading and have been for a while.
While reading the authors above, I began to recognise circles of thought. Taleb quotes Popper and Kahnemann, Kahnemann quotes Taleb, and Syed draws extensively on all three.
There is no question in my mind that “Black Box Thinking” owes much to Kahnemann, Popper, and Taleb. And that is to be celebrated.
The current understanding of any critical topic in the world is based on previous thinking. Syed makes this point very clearly. Where there is no recognised failure, there is no progress. When theories are held as holy and unchallengeable, there is no learning. Growth becomes stifled and dies.
It was an exciting recognition, from my perspective, that Syed was drawing from many of the sources that I had recently found fascinating. But I have also had another moment of insight – where are my checks and balances coming from?
Syed inspired me to think this way, even if that was not a central theme. Am I personally at risk of closed thinking and cognitive dissonance because my current learning is drawn from a specific circle of thought? Would I be open to reading something outside of that circle with an open mind?
Maybe we will discover the answer together as this blog continues to unfold. It will be rewarding to see where the future of lean thinking heads and how we continue to leverage and expand people’s abilities.
What is clear is that learning must be built on quick experiments and hypothesis testing underpinned by the PDCA cycle. Syed expounds this view in “Black Box Thinking” – a book that does not come directly from a lean perspective but is an excellent read for anyone who comes from that worldview.
“Black Box Thinking” is highly recommended with telling examples and stories throughout. Have a read or a listen – I think you will find it rewarding.