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The Logic Of Failure: Recognizing And Avoiding Error In Complex Situations, by Dietrich Dorner
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Why do we make mistakes? Are there certain errors common to failure, whether in a complex enterprise or daily life? In this truly indispensable book, Dietrich D�rner identifies what he calls the “logic of failure”—certain tendencies in our patterns of thought that, while appropriate to an older, simpler world, prove disastrous for the complex world we live in now. Working with imaginative and often hilarious computer simulations, he analyzes the roots of catastrophe, showing city planners in the very act of creating gridlock and disaster, or public health authorities setting the scene for starvation. The Logic of Failure is a compass for intelligent planning and decision-making that can sharpen the skills of managers, policymakers and everyone involved in the daily challenge of getting from point A to point B.
- Sales Rank: #67912 in Books
- Published on: 1997-08-04
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.25" h x 6.25" w x .75" l, .75 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 240 pages
From Publishers Weekly
The Chernobyl atomic-plant explosion, observes Dorner, was entirely due to human error involving the breaking of safety rules by a team of experts who reinforced one another's puffed-up sense of competence. This German psychology professor believes people court failure through sloppy or ingrained mental habits, whether the mistakes involve cleaning dead fish out of a garden pool, adding rooms to a schoolhouse, launching economic development programs in Africa or forecasting oil prices or the scope of the AIDS epidemic. Things go wrong, according to Dorner, because we focus on just one element in a system complicated by interrelationships; we apply corrective measures too aggressively or too timidly; we ignore basic premises, overgeneralize, follow blind alleys, overlook potential side effects and narrowly extrapolate from the moment, basing our predictions of the future on those aspects of the present that bother or delight us the most. This ingenious manual will assist problem-solvers in all fields.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Things going wrong is an all-too-common modern management experience. Pressed for time, an administrator makes a hasty decision that remedies the problem but creates myriad new problems for someone else. Dorner (psychology, Univ. of Baumberg, Germany), an authority on cognitive behavior, questions whether or not our habits of thought measure up to the systemic demands of profound problems such as environmental degradation, nuclear weapons build-up, terrorism, and overpopulation. Using computer-simulated "real world" scenarios, he measured his test subjects's problem-solving performances over time, and, not surprisingly, discovered that people court failure in predictable patterns?from simple confusion and misperception to short attention spans and unwillingness to change tactics. All is not lost, however, for Dorner suggests that despite the repeated failure, we can learn to recognize defective management behaviors and correct them. Dorner's "only the facts" approach is refreshing; he offers clear arguments, convincing evidence, and well-reasoned conclusions. One of the best management titles of the year, this is a necessary addition to both psychology and management collections of all types.?David R. Johnson, Fayetteville P.L., Ark.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A challenging, though preliminary, look at the difficulties of decision making, exploring how and why bad decisions are made. From G”del's incompleteness theorem to chaos and quantum theory, much of 20th-century thought has focused on underscoring the inextricable complexities of the universe and, thus, the inevitable inadequacies of knowledge. Now D”rner (Psychology/Univ. of Bamberg). a winner of Germany's highest science prize, the Leibnitz Award, makes his own contribution to the study of complexity by demonstrating just how difficult and problematic decision making can be. Happily, his methodology is both elegant and revealing. He has constructed a series of computer simulations in which the test subject might take on the role of mayor of a small town or district commissioner in charge of an arid region in Africa. Carte blanche is given to the subject struggling to deal with problems arising from such matters as population, resources, unemployment, and crop yields. Some people fail spectacularly, and some do a pretty good job, and the reasons are nearly always the same and surprisingly simple, at least in the abstract: ``What matters is not, I think, development of exotic mental capabilities . . . There is only one thing that does in fact matter, and that is the development of our common sense.'' D”rner adds that we must also learn to think in terms of time (both forwards and backwards) and the complex interrelationships within systems. Of course, models are always suspect because they tend to be reductive. But if D”rner is right, the implications here are substantial, for he has created a basic blueprint for testing decision making skills and a broad model for improving them. The corporate types who quest perpetually after the latest management techniques will almost certainly seize upon D”rner's work. But this is not so much a ``how-to'' guide as a provocative and important road map for years of future scientific experiment and investigation. (88 b&w illustrations) -- Copyright �1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
122 of 127 people found the following review helpful.
What makes people poor problem solvers?
By Ronald Scheer
Dietrich D�rner is an authority on cognitive behavior and a psychology professor at the University of Bamberg, Germany. His research shows that our habits as problem solvers are typically counterproductive.
Probably our main shortcoming is that we like to oversimplify problems. D�rner offers a long list of self-defeating behaviors, but common to all of them is our reluctance to see any problem is part of a whole system of interacting factors. Any problem is much more complex than we like to believe. And failure doesn't have to come from incompetence. The operators of the Chernobyl reactor, as D�rner points out, were "experts." And as experts, they ignored safety standards because they "knew what they were doing."
D�rner identifies four habits of mind and characteristics of thought that account for the frequency of our failures:
1. The slowness of our thinking-We streamline the process of problem solving to save time and energy.
2. Our wish to feel confident and competent in our problem solving abilities-We try to repeat past successes.
3. Our inability to absorb quickly and retain large amounts of information-We prefer unmoving mental models, which cannot capture a dynamic, ever-changing process.
4. Our tendency to focus on immediately pressing problems-We ignore the problems our solutions will create.
Successful problem solving is so complex that there are no hard-and-fast rules that work all the time. The best take-away from the book (and this is my favorite quote): "An individual's reality model can be right or wrong, complete or incomplete. As a rule it will be both incomplete and wrong, and one would do well to keep that probability in mind." The book is 199 easy-to-read pages, and D�rner gives lots of interesting examples from lab tests illustrating people's actual behavior in problem-solving situations.
It's a thought-provoking book for anyone whose job is to tackle complex problems. In one way or another that includes anyone in just about any profession.
38 of 38 people found the following review helpful.
"On S'engage Et Puis On Voit!"
By Robert I. Hedges
Napoleon said "On s'engage et puis on voit!" Loosely translated that means "One jumps into the fray, then figures out what to do next," a common human approach to planning. This discussion (page 161) takes on the adaptability of thought and cautions decision makers about the risks of overplanning in a dynamic, multivariate system. Using examples from Napoleon as well as more concrete examples such as the quotation about soccer strategy (also on page 161,) Dietrich D�rner, the brilliant German behavioral psychologist (University of Bamberg) has created a masterwork on decision making skills in complex systems; I find it to be highly complimentary to Perrow's work and also highly recommend his equally brilliant "Normal Accidents."
A strength of this work is that D�rner takes examples from so many areas including his own computer simulations which show the near-universal applicability of his concepts. One of D�rner's main themes is the failure to think in temporal configurations (page 198): in other words, humans are good at dealing with problems they currently have, but avoid dealing with and tend to ignore problems they don't have (page 189): potential outcomes of decisions are not foreseen, sometimes with tragic consequences. In one computer simulation (page 18) D�rner had a group of hypereducated academics attempt to manage farmland in Africa: they failed miserably. In this experiment D�rner made observations about the decision makers which revealed that they had: "acted without prior analysis of the situation; failed to anticipate side effects and long-term repercussions; assumed the absence of immediately negative effects meant that correct measures had been taken; and let overinvolvement in 'projects' blind them to emerging needs and changes in the situation." (How many governmental bodies the world over does this remind you of?)
I am a safety professional, and am especially interested in time-critical decision making skills. D�rner's treatment of the Chernobyl accident is the most insightful summation I have seen. He makes the point that the entire accident was due to human failings, and points out the lack of risk analysis (and managerial pressure) and fundamental lack of appreciation for the reactivity instability at low power levels (and more importantly how operators grossly underestimated the danger that changes in production levels made, page 30.) D�rner's grasp here meshes the psychology and engineering disciplines (engineers like stasis; any change in reactivity increases hazards.) Another vital point D�rner makes is that the Chernobyl operators knowingly violated safety regulations, but that violations are normally positively reinforced (i.e. you normally "get away with it," page 31.) The discussion about operating techniques on pages 33 and 34 is insightful: the operators were operating the Chernobyl Four reactor intuitively and not analytically. While there is room for experiential decision making in complex systems, analysis of future potential problems is vital.
In most complex situations the nature of the problems are intransparent (page 37): not all information we would like to see is available. D�rner's explanation of the interactions between complexity, intransparence, internal dynamics (and developmental tendencies,) and incomplete (or incorrect) understanding of the system involved shows many potential pitfalls in dynamic decision making skills. One of the most important of all decision making criteria D�rner discusses is the importance of setting well defined goals. He is especially critical of negative goal setting (intention to avoid something) and has chosen a perfect illustrative quote from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg on page 50: "Whether things will be better if they are different I do not know, but that they will have to be different if they are to become better, that I do know." A bigger problem regarding goals occurs when "we don't even know that we don't understand," a situation that is alarmingly common in upper management charged with supervising technical matters (page 60.)
Fortunately D�rner does have some practical solutions to these problems, most in chapter six, "Planning." One of the basics (page 154) is the three step model in any planning decision (condition element, action element, and result element) and how they fit into large, dynamic systems. This is extremely well formulated and should be required reading for every politician and engineer. These concepts are discussed in conjunction with "reverse planning" (page 155) in which plans are contrived backwards from the goal. I have always found this a very useful method of planning or design, but D�rner finds that is rare. D�rner argues that in extremely complex systems (Apollo 13 is a perfect example) that intermediate goals are sometimes required as decision trees are enormous. This sometimes relies on history and analogies (what has happened in similar situations before) but it may be required to stabilize a situation to enable further critical actions. This leads back to the quote that titles this review: 'adaptability of thought' (my term) is vital to actions taken in extremely complex situations. Rigid operating procedures and historical problems may not always work: a full understanding of the choices being made is vital, although no one person is likely to have this understanding; for this reason D�rner recommends there be a "redundancy of potential command" (page 161) which is to say a group of highly trained leaders able to carry out leadership tasks within their areas of specialty (again, NASA during Apollo 13) reportable in a clear leadership structure which values their input. D�rner then points out that nonexperts may hold key answers (page 168); though notes that experts should be in charge as they best understand the thought processes applicable in a given scenario (pages 190-193.) This ultimately argues for more oversight by technicians and less by politicians: I believe (and I am guessing D�rner would concur) that we need more inter- and intra-industry safety monitoring, and fewer congressional investigations and grandstanding.
This is a superb book; I recommend it highly to any safety professional as mandatory reading, and to the general public for an interesting discussion of decision making skills.
51 of 54 people found the following review helpful.
Over-promised and under-delivered
By Dr. Bill
The book got my juices flowing in the first chapter, especially with the reference to human interaction with dynamic systems and the tendency to "oversteer". I wrote my doctoral dissertation over 30 years ago on just such a phenomenon as applied to the broiler industry (yes, chickens), which behaves as an underdamped servomechanism. (I'm an engineer).
However the early promise of the book didn't bloom as I'd hoped. Rather than use real world examples, all of the author's principles are drawn from simulated experiments. As a doctoral student I was subjected to many simulated business game situations, and while they can be made complex to third and fourth generation consequences, life is more complex than that (think The Tipping Point and Jim Burke's The Pinball Effect).
The effort to draw principles in the last chapter suffered two defects: there are too many of them and they are shallowly explained in terms of real-world usefulness.
While I think the book is worth reading, it over-promised and under-delivered. I'd recommend speed reading it for high level content and avoid getting bogged down in the simulations. I highlight as I read, and the highlighting became less and less as the book wore on. That's the best evidence I have on the value of a book to me when I finish reading it and review my highlighting and notes.
A much more practical book (for me) was Managing the Unexpected by Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe.
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