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Minute Six

How High-Performance Teams Navigate the Unknown
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Minute Six

By: Kevin Fong
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No plan survives the first five minutes of contact with reality – so how should we prepare for what follows?

Kevin Fong has spent his working life in high-risk, high-performance teams – flying as a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service doctor, working with NASA’s human spaceflight programme, as well as being part of the UK’s frontline response to major incidents and terror attacks. Told through gripping stories of the most challenging, high-pressure emergencies across medicine, aviation and spaceflight, Minute Six provides crucial, counter-intuitive insights into how the best teams and organisations succeed against the odds, learn from failure and go again.

As Fong shows, decisions in the face of irreducible uncertainty are the ultimate team sport and their success depends wholly on the wider systems that support them. He exposes the key principles for designing those systems: distributed leadership, deference to expertise, delegation of authority, graceful failure, embracing complexity and finding the right balance between humans and technology. The ultimate lessons are these: never lose sight of the humans in the loop, and when it comes to managing fast-moving threats in the face of the unknown, the edge of chaos is exactly where you need to be.

Minute Six is the essential survival guide for an ever-more volatile and uncertain world.

© Kevin Fong 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 Leadership Management & Leadership Organisational Behavior Personal Development Safety & Emergency Preparedness Stress Management Workplace & Organisational Behavior
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Critic reviews

For anyone seeking to understand how high-performance teams truly navigate uncertainty – whether in space, healthcare, or any complex system – this book is an invaluable guide and a powerful testament to the human spirit (TIM PEAKE, astronaut)
Humane, gripping and profound. Whether you’re a parent, a CEO, a teacher or an astronaut, you’ll love this book: Kevin Fong’s approach gives all of us a chance to achieve the impossible (CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN, author of Ultra-Processed People)
This gripping, essential book is a masterclass in human resilience and a blueprint for navigating the unknown (DAVID NOTT, author of War Doctor)
Kevin Fong brilliantly cuts across disciplines to give rare, useful tools and insights. A must-read for anyone making big decisions when short on information (CHRIS HADFIELD, astronaut)
One of the clearest and most human examinations I’ve read of how people and organizations adapt under pressure when the stakes are highest. This book belongs on the shelf of every leader responsible for others in uncertain environments (Gen. STANLEY McCHRYSTAL, author of Team of Teams)
Easily the best book I’ve read this year. No-one should have to learn lessons this hard, but Kevin Fong has stared down the abyss again and again, made sense of the impossible, and brought that perspective back to make the world a better place (HELEN CZERSKI, author of Blue Machine)
Inspiring tales of people at their very best, told with humility and humanity. A moving reminder of the resilience, courage and hope that carry us through life’s toughest moments (OLIVIA COLMAN, actor)
A vivid page-turner and a must-read manual for how teams and leaders can work effectively in the face of irreducible uncertainty (ANIL SETH, author of Being You)
Compelling, compassionate and wise. You’ll never think about teamwork in the same way again (CLAUDIA HAMMOND, author of Overwhelmed)
Insightful and full of hard-won wisdom, this is a brilliant book about teamwork, adaptability and why one of the most important skills in a complex world may well be learning how to think when the script hasn't been penned (DEBORAH COHEN, author of Bad Influence)
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