Predatory Thinking

Dave Trott opens with two explorers walking through the jungle who suddenly hear a tiger roar. One sits down and takes a pair of running shoes out of his backpack. The other tells him he is crazy, because nobody can outrun a tiger. He replies that he does not have to outrun the tiger, only his companion. That story carries the book's central claim. Predatory thinking, as Trott defines it, involves looking at a challenge you cannot solve and getting upstream of it, changing it into a challenge you can solve. The argument arrives not as theory but in the form of short anecdotes and stories, and Trott presents it as the philosophy that has underpinned his career as a copywriter, creative director and founder of several London advertising agencies. He draws on Eastern and Western philosophy and on a cast of colourful characters ranging from Second World War fighter pilots to Picasso, Plutarch and Warren Beatty, offering the result as the distilled experience of a lifetime in creative work. The book is presented as a masterclass in outwitting the competition, with the competitive problem reframed rather than simply attacked harder.

Written from the books page on Dave Trott's own website.

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• Dave Trott