Book of the week: Clutch by Paul Sullivan

(Portfolio, $25.95)

In business and as in life, when that “make-or-break moment arrives,” there’s a fine line between choking and thriving, said Philip Delves Broughton in The Wall Street Journal. In Clutch, New York Times writer Paul Sullivan studies why some people excel under pressure and others fail. At the peak of the financial crisis, for example, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase rolled up his sleeves and managed to “handsomely increase his company’s share prices.” Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America, meanwhile, “made the errors typical of chokers” and lost $90 billion in shareholder value.

Drawing from such tales, Sullivan concludes that the capacities key to clutch performance are focus, discipline, adaptability, an ability to stay in the moment, and a proper balance of fear and desire, said Elizabeth Kellar in the Naples, Fla., Daily News. In the end, clutch performers are successful because “even under pressure, they are able to keep making their usual intelligent decisions.”

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