Adapt cover art

Adapt

Why Success Always Starts with Failure

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Adapt

By: Tim Harford
Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Everything we know about solving the world’s problems is wrong. Out: Plans, experts and above all, leaders. In: Adapting - improvise rather than plan; fail, learn, and try again.

In this groundbreaking new book, Tim Harford shows how the world’s most complex and important problems - including terrorism, climate change, poverty, innovation, and the financial crisis - can only be solved from the bottom up by rapid experimenting and adapting.

From a spaceport in the Mojave Desert to the street battles of Iraq, from a blazing offshore drilling rig to everyday decisions in our business and personal lives, this is a handbook for surviving - and prospering - in our complex and ever-shifting world.

2012, CMI Management Book of the Year, Long-listed

2012, Axiom Business Book Awards, Winner

©2011 Tim Harford (P)2011 Hachette Audio UK Career Success Decision-Making & Problem Solving Economics Management Management & Leadership Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Sociology Theory Business Career Leadership Inspiring Taxation

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Superforecasting cover art
The Bomber Mafia cover art
Naked Money cover art
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy cover art
48 Laws of Power cover art
Principles cover art
The Righteous Mind cover art
Nudge cover art
The Gray Rhino cover art
The Innovator's Solution cover art
Integrity cover art
The Master Switch cover art
The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility" cover art
Smartcuts cover art
The Starfish and the Spider cover art
Business Strategy cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
This could be a great book - but I'll never know because the tone and style of the narration is a terrible match to the content and tone of the book, and totally put me off! Tim Harford is an engaging speaker, there is a lightness to the way he explains even the most complex subjects, if only he'd narrated this book. Unfortunately the narrator used has a drool, serious and supercilious tone which is as off putting as his hissing sibilant sounds.

I wish Tim Harford narrated this book :(

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Gets very complicated around 3/4 the way through, going into technical details about oil rigs and banks. I found myself tuning out. But the book ends strongly and for the most part I found it very thought provoking.

Thought provoking

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Good book, the first and last third parts especially, the middle third was a bit dull though.

would recommend, but once you finish the first third you know everything as the examples just repeat the principle.

Worth a read, but repeats a bit much in the middle

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What an interesting and unusual book, and read in a clear, straightforward style. I have to disagree with the previous reviewer about incorrect inflection. Judge for yourself, but I found the no-nonsense narration easy and enjoyable to listen to.

"Adapt" is a practical application of complexity theory to modern life. As such it challenges many common sense assumptions. Failure is often the prelude to success, because it involves experiment, which allows us to learn, if we can recognise, admit and understand our mistakes.

The case examples are interesting, from the "toaster project" to the overturning of Rumsfeldt's disasterous central planning of the Iraq war, to the building of the first Spitfire through the persistence of a maverick civil servant and the generosity of an eccentric female philanthropist. Perhaps there are a few too many military examples. However, I really enjoyed this audiobook.

Clever, entertaining and well narrated!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Aell Aell
Lo litt, lerte litt, Fiine.
Guddnt me lüdbog når du e sledn itte büen??

Fede bog vettu

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Tim Harford gets better and better, now with a whole thoughtful book exploring the concept of evolution as applied to markets and other complex systems. He is really becoming the UK's Paul Krugman with his colourful analogies that bring to life economic concepts for the lay person - Coco bonds as airbags and 'economic Bulldogs' for the unintended consequences of well intended policy. So why only four stars? Well, most unfortunately, Tim (who, as we all know, is himself a highly competent presenter, well able to read his own book) delegated this task to some actor who decided to deliver various lengthily quoted passages in the supposedly appropriate accent. So Adam Smith appears with a rich scottish burr, and various Americans with a transatlantic drawl. This is irritating and unnecessary (and probably inaccurate) but tolerable. It becomes unbearable when we have third world economists such as Muhammad Yunus (founder of the Grameen bank). The narrator can't actually face the horror of putting on a faux-Bengali accent so he does a sort of 'humble peasant voice' instead. Made me squirm. Tim - read your own books - please.

A rising star

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
loved it I've now started branching my own research into the different avenues that he directed me to and great guide to my own enterprises

reverting read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
fascinating account, slightly marred by the jarring accents of the narrator - no need for them.

ditch the accents

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
One of the best books I have heard / read. For me a convincing tour de force.

Fantastic read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
he tends to dwell on examples a bit long, but it's fascinating and charming written.

is a cracker if your in to this sort of book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews