Making Decisions By Ed Smith ... Winning takes many forms. For fans of Matthew Syed, this is a great sports book about leadership, judgement and decision-making – rooted in the theory that helped Ed Smith lead England cricket to sustained success. And to help us all win more. ‘An absolutely fascinating book’ THE GAME, The Times football podHow do you spot the opportunities that others miss?How do you turn a team’s performance around?How do you make good decisions amid a tidal wave of information? And how can you improve?As chief selector for the England cricket team, Ed Smith pioneered new methods for building successful teams and watched his decisions tested in real time on the pitch. During his three-year tenure, England averaged 7 wins in every 10 completed matches, better than they have performed before or since. Making Decisions reveals Smith’s unique approach to finding success in a fast-changing and increasingly data-reliant world. The best decisions, Smith argues, rely on a combination of differing kinds of from algorithms to intuition. This is a truth that the most successful people data cannot account for everything, it must be harnessed with human insight. Whatever the power of data, humans aren’t finished yet. Sharing for the first time the tools he introduced as England selector, Smith’s book captures the immediacy of life at the sharp end, while also exploring frameworks from the top levels of sports, business and the arts. Decision-making is revealed as a creative enterprise, not a reductive system. Making Decisions offers an invaluable guide for those who want a better framework for developing, explaining and implementing new ideas.
Author
![Ed Smith]()
Ed Smith
ED SMITH is an award-winning food and recipe writer. After leaving a career as a lawyer for a life in food, he trained as a chef, worked briefly in restaurants and pop-ups, and now cooks, consults, writes, and spends a bit too much time on social media (@rocketandsquash). His cookbooks include 'Crave; recipes arranged by flavour to suit your mood and appetite', which was named cookery book of the year in 2022, 'On the Side' and 'The Borough Market Cookbook'. And he regularly contributes recipe columns to the likes of Waitrose Food, Waitrose Weekend, BBC Good Food magazine, Delicious and The Sunday Times Magazine.
Ed and his work have won and been shortlisted on multiple occasions for numerous awards, including Best Cookery Book, Best Cookery Writer and Best Food Writer at both The Fortnum and Mason Food and Drink Awards, and the Guild of Food Writers Awards.