10/12/2023 0 Comments Checklist manifesto bulkThe first thought was to make pilots undergo longer training. A group of pilots started figuring out what can be done to prevent the accidents in the future. The army decided to give the aircraft a chance, and bought a few of them as test planes. An investigation revealed that the cause of the accident was “pilot error”. However, soon after the aircraft lifted off, it exploded. Boeing presented a plane with amazing capabilities: it could fly faster, almost twice as far as other bombers, and could carry five times as many bombs as requested. Army Air Corps held a competition for airplane manufacturers to build a next-generation bomber. A checklist is an instrument of protection against failures The story of checklists According to Gawande, there is a strategy “for overcoming failure, one that builds on the experience and takes advantage of the knowledge people have but somehow also makes up for our inevitable human inadequacies.” This strategy is a checklist. The truth is, many mistakes are avoidable – in the fields of medicine and business, finances and government, etc. However, we should remember there are two sides of a coin: those on the receiving end take it as negligence, while those who actually made the mistake get frustrated because the volume and complexity of knowledge are overwhelming, and they simply cannot handle it. If a person gets sentenced to death – and killed – because of a human error, that is a big deal. While it’s easy to forgive failures of ignorance, failures of ineptitude cause disappointment and anger. Gawande provides the following example: back in the 1950-s, people didn’t know much about heart attacks: when that happened to someone, they would be given some morphine and oxygen, and then “everyone would pray and cross their fingers.” Today we know about many ways of treatment and even preventing heart attacks yet we face a different challenge: what treatment is the most appropriate in this particular situation? More than that, each type of treatment involves further choices to make (testing, diagnosis, and so on), which makes the situation more complicated. What’s interesting, for nearly all of history, ignorance has been the main source of human mistakes – but over the last decades, due to the rapid development of science, we’ve been failing mostly because of ineptitude. In the first case, we, for example, don’t know how to build a certain type of skyscraper, while in the second case we build skyscrapers that collapse. Here we fail either because we are ignorant, having only a partial understanding of things, or because we don’t apply the knowledge correctly (the authors call it “ineptitude”). The second reason concerns realms that we can control, to a certain extent. Our physical and mental capabilities are limited, and many things still remain beyond our understanding (like the secrets of the universe). The first one, they explained, is that human beings are not all-powerful. In their essay about human fallibility, the philosophers Gorovitz and MacIntyre tried to explain why people make mistakes. Lesson #1: Science complexity makes us fail – but there is a way out Checklists give power to those who usually don’t have it Checklists provide discipline, and discipline makes success possible The value of checklists is evident – yet we don’t like them To make a perfect checklist, follow the rules Checklists can be different – so make sure you prepare the right one Some checklists require a special component for a problem to be solved A checklist is an instrument of protection against failures Lesson #1: Science complexity makes us fail – but there is a way out.In our summary of “The Checklist Manifesto” we tried to embrace the most vivid ideas about checklists – or rather, the lessons Atul Gawande learned about the concept. Failing and getting frustrated, he was able to prove that this technique works – even though the whole world seemed to resist. The author, a surgeon by profession, describes the concept of checklists through the prism of a long personal journey: not only did he research the impact of checklists on work in different fields, but also implemented the practice of using them at hospitals. “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right” by Atul Gawande is not a typical self-help book. But the chef insists – he says you’re stressed, and may forget to put salt in the soup the checklist will help. You get annoyed you’re already in a hurry. Suddenly, the chef gives you a sheet of paper with a list of items you need to check. You’re a cook at a popular restaurant, and you’re desperately trying to finish cooking by 5 pm when the guests arrive.
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