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Minute Six
  • Published: 17 October 2026
  • ISBN: 9781847923684
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $60.00

Minute Six

How High-Performance Teams Navigate the Unknown

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
22 Sept 2026
EBook
17 Sept 2026
Audiobook
17 Sept 2026
Hardback
17 Oct 2026
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Kevin Fong, doctor, expert in major-incident planning and response, and writer-presenter of the hit podcast 13 Minutes to the Moon, shares crucial insights into teamwork, crisis management and resilience in this essential survival guide for an uncertain world.

Kevin Fong, doctor, expert in major-incident planning and response, and writer-presenter of the hit podcast 13 Minutes to the Moon, shares crucial insights into teamwork, crisis management and resilience in this essential survival guide for an uncertain world.

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.

Combining hard-won expertise with superb storytelling, Minute Six is the essential survival guide for an ever-more volatile and uncertain world.
  • Published: 17 October 2026
  • ISBN: 9781847923684
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $60.00
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About the author

Kevin Fong

Kevin Fong (OBE) is a medical doctor specialising in anaesthesia and intensive-care medicine and is departmental lead for major-incident planning at UCL Hospitals. He also flies as a doctor with a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service, has worked with NASA’s human spaceflight programme and was the writer and presenter of the number-one hit podcast 13 Minutes to the Moon. In 2020 he was seconded as National Clinical Adviser to NHS England's Covid-19 Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Team. He holds degrees in astrophysics, medicine and engineering.
KF

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Praise for Minute Six

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

Invaluable. A powerful testament to the human spirit

TIM PEAKE, astronaut

Humane, gripping and profound. Kevin Fong has written a book only he could write. His 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

Easily the best book I’ve read this year, full of exceptional storytelling. 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, and a moving reminder of the resilience, courage and hope that carry us through life’s toughest moments

OLIVIA COLMAN, Academy Award-winning 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

CLAUDIA HAMMOND, author of Overwhelmed

Full of hard-won wisdom, this is a brilliant book

DEBORAH COHEN, author of Bad Influence

Never underestimate the power of a small team with deep knowledge and good communication. And when a pandemic starts, you'd better hope that lots of them step forward

SARAH GILBERT, co-developer of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine

Enthralling from start to finish. Fong captures brilliantly the stomach-clenching drama of striving for excellence on the brink of chaos. No-one is better placed to dissect how humans best navigate our complex, volatile high-stakes world

RACHEL CLARKE, author of The Story of a Heart