by Matthew Syed
18. Silverman Prize.
19. http://reclaimingfutures.org/juvenile-justice-reform-scared-straight-facts-vs-hype.
20. A. Petrosino, C. Turpin-Petrosino, M. E. Hollis-Peel, and J. G. Lavenberg, “Scared Straight and Other Juvenile Awareness Programs for Preventing Juvenile Delinquency: A Systematic Review.”
21. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/nyregion/23solve.html.
22. http://www.northjersey.com/news/neighbor-sentenced-in-decades-old-ridgefield-park-murder-1.1238173.
CHAPTER 9: MARGINAL GAINS
1. Reproduced with permission of Esther Duflo.
2. https://www.ted.com/speakers/esther_duflo.
3. Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen in Our Lifetime (New York: Penguin, 2005).
4. William Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (New York: Penguin Books, 2007).
5. Tim Harford, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure (New York: Little, Brown, 2011).
6. https://www.ted.com/speakers/esther_duflo.
7. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (New York: Penguin, 2012).
8. Alan G. Robinson and Sam Stern, Corporate Creativity: How Innovation and Improvement Actually Happen (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1998).
9. See Uncontrolled by Jim Manzi.
10. https://hbr.org/2009/02/how-to-design-smart-business-experiments.
11. Interview with the author.
12. Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, Think Like a Freak: How to Think Smarter About Almost Everything (London: Allen Lane, 2014).
13. See this excellent essay by Eric Ries: http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2010/04/learning-is-better-than-optimization.html.
14. The tech blogger Andrew Chen has made this point brilliantly in a series of blog posts. See for example http://andrewchen.co/know-the-difference-between-data-informed-and-versus-data-driven/.
CHAPTER 10: HOW FAILURE DRIVES INNOVATION
1. Interview with the author.
2. C. Nemeth, M. Personnaz, B. Personnaz, and J. Goncalo, “The Liberating Role of Conflict in Group Creativity: A Cross-Cultural Study.” Submitted to European Journal of Social Psychology 34 (2004): 365–74. See more at: http://psychology.berkeley.edu/people/charlan-jeanne-nemeth#sthash.bVcF2wGG.dpuf.
3. Jonah Lehrer, Imagine: How Creativity Works (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012).
4. C. Nemeth and J. Kwan, “Originality of Word Associations as a Function of Majority v Minority Influence Processes,” Social Psychology Quarterly 48 (1985): 277–82.
5. See Jonah Lehrer, Imagine: How Creativity Works.
6. He also integrated developments in metallurgy and high-quality ink.
7. David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2012).
8. Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (London: Pan, 1995).
9. Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Seven Patterns of Innovation (New York: Penguin, 2011).
10. Ibid.
11. See http://www.alfredwallace.org
12. Lorentz on special relativity, Hilbert on general relativity.
13. See Ronald Cohn and Jesse Russell, Relativity Priority Dispute (VSD, 2012).
14. http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/hmi-industries-inc-history/.
15. Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen, Great by Choice.
16. Gerard J. Tellis and Peter N. Golder, Will and Vision: How Latecomers Grow to Dominate Markets (Los Angeles: Figueroa Press, 2006).
17. Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen, Great by Choice.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration (New York: Random House, 2014).
21. Ibid.
22. R. G. Dorman, Dust Control and Cleaning (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1973).
CHAPTER 11: LIBYAN ARAB AIRLINES FLIGHT 114
1. Information relating to the flight sourced from Zvi Lanir, “The Reasonable Choice of Disaster,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 1989.
2. Major John T. Phelps, “Aerial Intrusions by Civil and Military Aircraft in Time of Peace,” Military Law Review 107, no. 27 (1985).
3. https://hbr.org/2011/04/strategies-for-learning-from-failure.
4. Amy Edmondson, “Learning from Mistakes Is Easier Said Than Done: Group and Organisation Influences on the Detection and Correction of Human Error,” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 32, no. 1 (1996), 5–28.
5. Sidney Dekker, Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012).
6. Interview with the author.
7. Interview with the author.
8. Sidney Dekker, Just Culture.
9. https://hbr.org/2011/04/strategies-for-learning-from-failure.
10. Ben Dattner (with Darren Dahl), The Blame Game (New York: Free Press, 2012).
11. Jean Brittain Leslie and Ellen Van Velsor, “A Look at Derailment Today: North America and Europe,” quoted in The Blame Game by Ben Dattner.
12. Fiona Lee, C. Peterson, and L. Tiedens, “Mea Culpa: Predicting Stock Prices from Organizational Attributions,” in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30, no. 12 (2004): 1–14.
CHAPTER 12: THE SECOND VICTIM
1. Baby P: The Untold Story, documentary by BBC TV.
2. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/nov/18/comment-social-services-child-protection.
3. Ray Jones, The Story of Baby P: Setting the Record Straight (Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2014).
4. Baby P: The Untold Story.
5. Ray Jones, The Story of Baby P.
6. http://andrewadonis.com/2012/10/09/social-work-needs-a-teach-first-revolution/.
7. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1268433/In-hiding-mother-accused-abuse-cuddling-child.html.
8. Ray Jones, The Story of Baby P.
9. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2009/10/19/care-applications-to-cafcass-continue-to-soar/.
10. Ray Jones, The Story of Baby P.
11. See Statistical Appendix to Office of National Statistics Report on Violent Crime and Sexual Offences.
12. Baby P: The Untold Story.
13. J. F. Christensen, W. Levinson, and P. M. Dunn, “The Heart of Darkness: The Impact of Perceived Mistakes on Physicians,” Journal of General Internal Medicine 7, no. 4 (1992): 424–31.
14. T. D. Shanafelt, C. M. Balch, L. Dyrbye, et al., “Special Report: Suicidal Ideation Among American Surgeons,” Archive of Surgeons 146, no. 1 (2011): 54–62.
15. Baby P: The Untold Story.
16. Sidney Dekker, Just Culture.
17. Interview with Brian Leversha.
18. Stewart was found guilty of endangering the jet passengers but not guilty of endangering people and property on the ground, a contradiction that was later reported by the Law Society.
19. http://picma.org.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/Events/November%20Oscar%20article.pdf.
CHAPTER 13: THE BECKHAM EFFECT
1. http://cpl.psy.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Moser_Schroder_Moran_et-al_Mind-your-errors-2011.pdf.
2. Carol I. Diener and Carol S. Dweck, “An Analysis of Learned Helplessness: Continuous Changes in Performance, Strategy and Achievement Cognitions Following Failure,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36, no. 5 (1978): 451–62.
3. In press. But see: https://hbr.org/2014/11/how-companies-can-profit-from-a-growth-mindset.
4. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0824/colleges-09-education-west-point-america-best-college.html.
5. http://www.west-point.org/parent/wppc-st_louis/Handbooks/2011ParentCadetI
nfo.pdf.
6. Angela L. Duckworth, Christopher Peterson, M. D. Matthews, and D. R. Kelly, “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals,” revised for resubmission to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92, no. 6 (2007): 1087–101.
7. See https://www.man.com/GB/cultivating-skill-in-a-world-lacking-genius; IQ versus RQ: Differentiating Smarts from Decision Making Skills, by Michael J Mauboussin; and Understanding Overconfidence: Implicit Theories, Preferential Attention, and Distorted Self-assessment, by Joyce Ehrlinger and Carol S. Dweck (in press).
CHAPTER 14: REDEFINING FAILURE
1. Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Routledge, 2002).
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26359564.
3. Carol Dweck, “The Role of Expectations and attributions in the Alleviation of Learned Helplessness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 31, April 1975.
4. See Barbara G. Licht and Carol S. Dweck, Developmental Psychology 20, July 1984. This links with what we learned in chapter 5, where those with the strongest reputations—in medicine, in economics, in politics—were most threatened by their own mistakes, and were most likely to reframe them.
5. http://www.silicon-edge.com/blog/japan-has-problems-but-its-not-a-fear-of-failure.
6. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-entrepreneurship-vacuum-in-japan-why-it-matters-and-how-to-address-it/.
7. http://www.gemconsortium.org/assets/ uploads/1313079015GEM_2009_Global_Report_Rev_140410.pdf.
8. http://gemconsortium.org/docs/download/3616.
9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIuoHm0ibfE.
10. http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-overview.pdf.
11. Jo Boaler, Mathematical Mindsets (forthcoming).
12. Ibid.
13. http://mindsets-and-motivation-lab.commons.yale-nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2014/12/OKeefe-2013.pdf.
14. E. E. Jones and S. Berglas, “Control of Attribution About the Self Through Self-handicapping Strategies: The Appeal of Alcohol and the Role of Underachievement,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin4, 200–206.
15. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/health/06mind.html?_r=0.
CODA
1. Bryan Magee, Philosophy and the Real World: An Introduction to Karl Popper (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1985).
2. See Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations.
3. But see also Karen Armstrong, Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (London: Bodley Head, 2014).
4. Bryan Magee, Philosophy and the Real World.
5. Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (Leopold Classic Library, 2015).
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Uncertain Truth, TV program in which Popper is interviewed by the art historian, Ernst Gombrich. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWcSiM9ZjoU.
9. Edwin M. Borchard, Convicting the Innocent and State Indemnity for Errors of Criminal Justice (Seattle: Justice Institute, 2013).
10. Another powerful point that has been made by the thinker and entrepreneur Jim Manzi.
11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAP4E3EpedE.
12. Bryan Magee, Philosophy and the Real World.
13. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24393136.
14. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/strategy/strategic_decisions_when_can_you_trust_your_gut.
15. https://hbr.org/2007/09/performing-a-project-premortem.
Index
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. To find the corresponding locations in the text of this digital version, please use the “search” function on your e-reader. Note that not all terms may be searchable.
accidents
aviation and, 8–9, 19–20, 25–27, 27–31, 45
health care and, 9–11, 18
accountability
in Baby P case, 236–38
forward-looking, 230, 235, 238
Adapt (Harford), 129, 175
Adler, Alfred, 43–44
adoption rate, 56–57
Advanced Memory Systems, 205–6
A&E, 166
Africa, efficacy of aid to, 173–78
After Harm (Berlinger), 16
agriculture, 108–10
aid efforts in Africa, efficacy of, 173–78
AIDS, 147–49
airlines, 19–20, 25, 26
air traffic control, 21, 22
Al Qaeda, 93
Amazon, 143
American Institute of Medicine, 9
Amgen, 204–5
anaesthetics, 4–7, 18, 54, 293
ancient Greece, 277–79
Antifragile (Taleb), 133
Apple, 144
Applied Mathematics Panel, 35
Archimedes, 196
architecture, 133
“Are Inventions Inevitable” (Ogburn), 201
Aristotle, 41–42, 278, 279, 281
Aronson, Elliot, 75, 86–87, 93
Art, Steven, 82–83, 120
Art and Fear (Bayles and Orland), 140–41
artificial intelligence, 134–35
assertiveness, 28–29, 30
astrology, 42
astronomy, 281–82
ATM, 195–96
authority, 6, 23, 25, 28–29, 103–7
autopsies, 57–58
aviation, 45, 53, 131, 266
accidents and, 8–9, 19–20, 25–27, 27–31, 45
adoption rate and, 56
blame and, 232, 239–49
Boeing B-17 bomber, poor cockpit design of, 19, 54
complexity and, 137
culture of, 20, 25–27, 58
error and, 19–20
learning and, 25–27, 40–41
Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114, 217–19, 221–25
November Oscar incident, 239–49
reform and, 128
success and, 39–41
training and, 30–31
Wald’s analysis of returning bomber aircraft, 35–37
Axelrod, Alex, 278
Babineaux, Ryan, 140, 141
Baby P. See Connelly, Peter (Baby P case)
Bacon, Francis, 134n, 279, 280, 283
ballistic model of success, 145–46
Banja, John, 88–89
banking, 233
bankruptcy, 130
Barker, Steven, 236
Bayles, David, 140–41
Baylis, Trevor, 195
Becker, Jasper, 110
Beckham, David, 253–55, 265, 267, 274–76
Beebe, Rodrick, 21
Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), 291
Being Wrong (Schulz), 78
Berglas, Steven, 273–74
Berlinger, Nancy, 16, 90
Bernanke, Ben, 94–95, 98
Beyond Scared Straight (TV show), 166
Bible, the, 281
Birmingham Six, 117
black boxes, 8, 9, 25, 26, 221
black box thinking, 31
Blackstone, William, 65
Blair, Tony, 90–93, 94
blame, 12, 217–49
aviation and, 232, 239–49
cognitive dissonance and, 231
consequences of blame culture, 226–29, 231, 237–39
in corporate and political world, 225–31
fundamental attribution error and, 232
just culture and, 229–30
Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 and, 217–19, 221–25
media and, 234–35, 236–38
November Oscar incident and, 239–49
nursing/health care administration and, 226–27, 230–31
pervasiveness of, 225
/> politics and, 234
second victim and, 239
for social workers following Baby P case, 236–38, 239
Blind Watchmaker, The (Dawkins), 128
Blockbuster, 190
bloodletting, 13–14, 54, 154–56, 161–62
Boaler, Jo, 271, 272
Boeing B-17 bomber, 19, 54
bomber aircraft
Boeing B-17 bomber, poor cockpit design of, 19, 54
Wald’s analysis of returning bomber aircraft, 35–37
Borchard, Edwin, 67
Boskin, Michael J., 95
Bounce (Syed), 45n
Brailsford, Sir David, 171–73, 178, 179, 182, 183, 189
brainstorming, 196–97
Branson, Richard, 271
Brin, Sergey, 199
British Airways, 240, 241, 242, 246, 247
British Board of Trade, 56
Bromgard, Jimmy Ray, 77–79, 116
Bromiley, Adam, 4, 7, 294
Bromiley, Elaine, 3–7, 12, 15–16, 18, 28, 31, 60, 89, 292
Bromiley, Martin, 3–4, 6–7, 15–16, 18, 59–60, 292–94
Bromiley, Victoria, 4, 7, 294
Burns, Sir Terry, 98
Bush, George W., 73, 93, 111–12, 117
business
blame and, 225–31
evolutionary, 129–31
mindset and, 259–61
randomized control trials (RCTs) and, 184–86
cadet training, at West Point, 261–63
Callace, Leonard, 69
Cameron, Julia, 200
Campbell, Alastair, 94
Campbell Collaboration, 164
Capello, Fabio, 135–36
Capital One, 185–86
capital punishment, 76
Carnot, Nicolas Léonard Sadi, 132
Catmull, Ed, 207, 208–9, 210
centrally planned economies, 130, 284
Chabris, Christopher, 117
Chapanis, Alphonse, 19
charities, 147–49
checklists, 30, 39, 53, 59
Chicago Convention, 224–25
China, 110, 271–72
Christianity, 279–80
Clinical Human Factors Group, 60, 293
clinical trials, 14
Clinton, Bill, 187