Adapt summary

It might seem counterintuitive, but our most trusted organizational structures – such as the top-down model – continue to make a great number of mistakes.

Why?

The world is a complex place. Our modern economy, for example, depends on an intricate network of global supply chains, to the extent that, say, a Brazilian logger doesn’t know whether the trees he fells will be used to make a table or a guitar.

Even apparently small issues – economic and otherwise – are far more complex than you might first think.

Often, a solution to a complex problem is achieved by experimenting, and testing out many different design variations.

In the 1920s, no one realized the military potential of fighter planes – even the British, who didn’t believe that bombers could be stopped by them.

Picture a slice of Swiss cheese. Imagine that this slice of cheese represents one layer of safety in a system, and that its holes are points of vulnerability. By stacking many of these slices on top of each other, any clear path through the cheese would be blocked, right?

Though it might seem logical, this is not a surefire way to eliminate accidents. In fact, certain safety measures actually create new ways for failures to propagate through a complicated system.

In searching for the source of any given problem, we must learn to distinguish actual causes from ostensible ones.

Let’s take randomized trials as an example. Randomized trials place subjects into groups at random and give each group a different solution or treatment to be tested. These trials are effective because they help us to distinguish between a problem’s apparent cause and its actual one.

We all want to help the environment. Sometimes, though, the initiatives we create to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels can turn out to be bad for the planet.

In 2003, a UK council ruled that any mid- or large-scale development must have the ability to produce, on site, at least ten percent of the energy required by the building.

What do the U2 plane, which photographed the Russian missiles in Cuba, the Blackbird, the fastest plane in the world, and radar-immune stealth planes have in common? They were all developed within the experimental “Skunk Works” division of the defence firm Lockheed.

Such safe havens, or cultures of experimentation within companies, encourage greater innovation. In companies that have safe havens, unconventional ideas can gestate without the stifling influence of company politics.

In 2002, the ballet and musical Movin’ Out premiered in Chicago. It was critically panned.

As the production was due to begin its Broadway run in three months, its choreographer Twyla Tharp was distraught. As we’ll see, the way Tharp dealt with this very public failure was inspiring.