We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,747,318.03 | Books Available: 732,313 | Members Online: 244

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn from Their Mistakes -- But Some Do

Black Box Thinking Why Most People Never Learn from Their Mistakes But Some Do
Author: Matthew Syed

Nobody wants to fail. But in highly complex organizations, success can happen only when we confront our mistakes, learn from our own version of a black box, and create a climate where it’s safe to fail. — We all have to endure failure from time to time, whether it’s underperforming at a job interview, flunking an exa... more »m, or losing a pickup basketball game. But for people working in safety-critical industries, getting it wrong can have deadly consequences. Consider the shocking fact that preventable medical error is the third-biggest killer in the United States, causing more than 400,000 deaths every year.

More people die from mistakes made by doctors and hospitals than from traffic accidents. And most of those mistakes are never made public, because of malpractice settlements with nondisclosure clauses.

For a dramatically different approach to failure, look at aviation. Every passenger aircraft in the world is equipped with an almost indestructible black box. Whenever there’s any sort of mishap, major or minor, the box is opened, the data is analyzed, and experts figure out exactly what went wrong. Then the facts are published and procedures are changed, so that the same mistakes won’t happen again. By applying this method in recent decades, the industry has created an astonishingly good safety record.

Few of us put lives at risk in our daily work as surgeons and pilots do, but we all have a strong interest in avoiding predictable and preventable errors. So why don’t we all embrace the aviation approach to failure rather than the health-care approach? As Matthew Syed shows in this eye-opening book, the answer is rooted in human psychology and organizational culture.

Syed argues that the most important determinant of success in any field is an acknowledgment of failure and a willingness to engage with it. Yet most of us are stuck in a relationship with failure that impedes progress, halts innovation, and damages our careers and personal lives. We rarely acknowledge or learn from failure --even though we often claim the opposite. We think we have 20/20 hindsight, but our vision is usually fuzzy.

Syed draws on a wide range of sources -- from anthropology and psychology to history and complexity theory -- to explore the subtle but predictable patterns of human error and our defensive responses to error. He also shares fascinating stories of individuals and organizations that have successfully embraced a black box approach to improvement, such as David Beckham, the Mercedes F1 team, and Dropbox.

The Market's bargain prices are even better for Paperbackswap club members!

Retail Price: ~~$27.95~~
Buy New (Hardcover): $18.90 (save 32%) or
Become a PBS member and pay $15.00+1 PBS book credit Help icon

(save 46%)

ISBN-13: 9781591848226
ISBN-10: 1591848229
Publication Date: 9/15/2015
Pages: 320
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 3
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn from Their Mistakes -- But Some Do

Loading...