Borrowed Instinct E-Book

Most business books borrow biology’s look. Borrowed Instinct borrows its numbers.

Borrowed Instinct by Inji Borai is a leadership and organizational design book. It takes twelve findings from biology and turns each one into a practical law for how teams and companies share information, keep momentum, absorb shocks and protect what matters. Each law comes with a diagnostic you can run on your own team and an honest account of where it fails.

A starling in a murmuration tracks six or seven neighbours, however big the flock. A termite mound breathes on a daily cycle instead of venting like a chimney. A cheetah’s hunting success depends less on top speed than on how well it can turn and stop. This book asks what those mechanisms really transfer to management, team performance and strategy, and what they don’t.

What you will learn

• How to design teams and communication networks that move a signal fast, drawing on murmuration physics and the limits of team size
• Why recurring rhythms often beat permanent rules, and how to audit meetings that produce no decisions
• How partnerships create value when each side’s waste is the other’s input, as in coral reef symbiosis
• How organizations absorb shocks, recover between crises and build resilience, drawing on fire-adapted forests and serotiny
• Why speed in business is the ability to stop, with lessons from the Toyota andon cord and the Boeing 737 MAX investigation
• How to protect the people who absorb pressure for everyone else, and how to make the next experiment cheap

Built on evidence, not metaphor

Every case carries one of four labels: anecdote, illustration, benchmark or causal evidence. You can see how strong the evidence is before you act on it. The cases range from crew resource management in aviation and NASA’s Columbia accident board to Airbnb’s 2020 recovery and the Bangladesh Accord on building safety. Each draws on official reports and published sources.

Made for reading on screen

This digital edition includes the full text and every chapter illustration in full colour. A clickable table of contents and chapter bookmarks let you jump straight to the laws your team needs. Tap the links at the end of each part to go to the free online diagnostic and the Borrowed Instinct Playbook.

Who this book is for

Leaders, managers, executives, consultants, coaches and HR or learning and development professionals. It suits anyone working on organizational behaviour, change management, systems thinking, decision-making or evidence-based management.

Start with your three

Take the free Find Your Three diagnostic at coffeepress.ink/borrowed-instinct to see which two or three laws your team should work on first. Each chapter ends with three questions to take to your next team meeting.

About the author

Inji Borai has spent more than twenty years where economic policy meets business practice, from Egypt’s Vision 2030 strategy to global roles in payments and financial services. She co-founded Acumen Consulting, now leads global learning initiatives, and in 2024 was named one of the 50 most influential women in Egypt’s economy.