Meltdown
What Plane Crashes, Oil Spills, and Dumb Business Decisions Can Teach Us About H
-
-
5.0 • 6 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2019 National Business Book Award
A groundbreaking take on how complexity causes failure in all kinds of modern systems—from social media to air travel—this practical and entertaining book reveals how we can prevent meltdowns in business and life.
A crash on the Washington, D.C. metro system. An accidental overdose in a state-of-the-art hospital. An overcooked holiday meal. At first glance, these disasters seem to have little in common. But surprising new research shows that all these events—and the myriad failures that dominate headlines every day—share similar causes. By understanding what lies behind these failures, we can design better systems, make our teams more productive, and transform how we make decisions at work and at home.
Weaving together cutting-edge social science with riveting stories that take us from the frontlines of the Volkswagen scandal to backstage at the Oscars, and from deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico to the top of Mount Everest, Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik explain how the increasing complexity of our systems creates conditions ripe for failure and why our brains and teams can't keep up. They highlight the paradox of progress: Though modern systems have given us new capabilities, they've become vulnerable to surprising meltdowns—and even to corruption and misconduct.
But Meltdown isn't just about failure; it's about solutions—whether you're managing a team or the chaos of your family's morning routine. It reveals why ugly designs make us safer, how a five-minute exercise can prevent billion-dollar catastrophes, why teams with fewer experts are better at managing risk, and why diversity is one of our best safeguards against failure. The result is an eye-opening, empowering, and entirely original book—one that will change the way you see our complex world and your own place in it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clearfield, a former derivatives trader, and Tilcsik, a management academic, share cautionary tales of disaster resulting from small vulnerabilities in large systems. Their analysis is enlightening but they flounder in translating their insights into usable takeaways. Clearfield and Tilcsik's approach centers on sociologist Charles Perrow's 1984 theory that as a system's complexity and "tight coupling" (a lack of slack between different parts) increase, the "danger zone" does as well. Clear, well-paced storytelling around diverse events, including a fatal D.C. Metro train accident, Three Mile Island, the collapse of Enron, Volkswagen's emissions cheating, the Flint water crisis, the 2017 Oscars mix-up, and the commandeering of a Starbucks hashtag by the company's critics, will keep readers interested, whether or not they are invested in the organizational lessons. The solutions offered, however, tend toward the less-than-revolutionary: keeping decision-making parameters clear, increasing workforce diversity, and building organizational cultures in which dissent is genuinely encouraged. Clearfield and Tilcsik's most important warning is about the "normalization of deviance," when people come to redefine commonly encountered risks as acceptable, as can occur when automated warnings constantly cry wolf in hospitals. This manual articulates the ubiquitous nature of system failure well, but its approaches to "reducing complexity and adding slack" are too vague to be practically implementable.
Customer Reviews
Informative, Shocking and Chilling! A definite must read
A well researched, informative and downright unsettling book to read, that you won’t be able to put down. A definite must read, to keep yourself informed of what, technologically and financally, “has been” and the possibilities of what potentially “could be”. A book that thoroughly informs on negligence, oversight and corrupt practices in science, technology and finance. An absolute must read! My highest recommendation!