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Description edit
When faced with complex problems we have all become accustomed to looking to our leaders to set out a plan of action, to blaze a path to success. In this ground-breaking book, Tim Harford shows us a new and inspiring approach to solving the most pressing problems in our lives. Harford argues... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Geoff: Add a description of this character.
- Donald Rumsfeld
- Lyndon Johnson
- Col. H.
- Robert Mcnamara
- John Timpson
- Peter Palchinsky
- Reginald Mitchell
- H.r. Mcmaster
- David Petraeus
- Merton Rule
- Mario Capecchi
- Tetlock
- Harrison
- Archie Cochrane
- Twyla Tharp
- Tony Lomas
- Hidalgo
- Lind
- Frank
- Galvin
- W.l. Gore
- Paul Moore
- John Kay
- Ormerod
- Burroughs
- Hayek
- Karl Sims
- John Nagl
- Gore
- James Reason
- Billy Joel
- Charles Perrow
- Sean Macfarland
- Saddam Hussein: Former dictator of Iraq famous for fighting the Iran -Iraq and two Gulf wars. Was finally captured and put to trial by America.
- Euan Murray
- Lübeck
- John Endler
- John F. Kennedy: Charismatic former president of the US who was assassinated while in office. Scion of the famous Kennedy clan, he romanced Marilyn Monroe and was married to Jacqueline Kennedy. His time in office is referred to as Camelot.
- Tim Geithner
Quotes edit
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“The Soviet Union, like poor Phineas Gage, is a grotesquely extreme example. Only the worst dictatorships have exhibited the same pathological immunity to feedback. Yet, in a gentler way, most organisations and most forms of politics have the same difficulty in carrying out the simple process of variation and selection”
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“Peter Palchinsky was all for taking things step by step, but politicians resist pilot schemes with objective measures of success. This is partly because politicians are in a hurry: they expect to hold on to a role for two to four years, not long enough for most experiments to deliver meaningful results.”
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“But there is a more fundamental problem here than the right way to design an organisation, because it isn't just organisations that struggle to acknowledge and adapt to their mistakes. Most individuals suffer from the same problem. Accepting trial and error means accepting error.”
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“What Hayek realised, and Allende and Beer did not seem to, was that a complex world is full of knowledge that is localised and fleeting. crucially the local information is often something that local agents would prefer to use for their own purposes. Hayek's essay pre-dated modern computers, but his argument will retain its force until the day that computers can read our minds.”
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“The ideal candidate to receive government support seems to be a company that is very big and very unsuccessful. this is the perfect formula for sustained failure. Perhaps that is why historically, 'big-push' policies have often been ham-fisted - a shove off a cliff rather than a launch into orbit.”
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“If I bet that my neighbour's house will burned down, that should raise some eyebrows, but if I bet that my own house will burn down, that's insurance - it's not only sensible but compulsory in many countries.”
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“Adapting is not necessarily something we do. It may well be something that is *done to us.* We may think of ourselves as Professor Endler, but we're actually the guppies.”
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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‘Palchinsky principles’: first, seek out new ideas and try new things; second, when trying something new, do it on a scale where failure is survivable; third, seek out feedback and learn from your mistakes as you go along.
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The three essential steps are: to try new things, in the expectation that some will fail; to make failure survivable, because it will be common; and to make sure that you know when you’ve failed.
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‘a person who has not made peace with his losses is likely to accept gambles that would be unacceptable to him otherwise’.
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‘No plan survives first contact with the enemy’. What matters is how quickly the leader is able to adapt.
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Hayek believed that most people overestimated the value of centralised knowledge, and tended to overlook ‘knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place’.
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Faced with a mistake or a loss, the right response is to acknowledge the setback and change direction. Yet our instinctive reaction is denial. That is why ‘learn from your mistakes’ is wise advice that is painfully hard to take.
Highlighted by 106 Kindle customers -
First, try new things, expecting that some will fail. Second, make failure survivable: create safe spaces for failure or move forward in small steps. As we saw with banks and cities, the trick here is finding the right scale in which to experiment: significant enough to make a difference, but not such a gamble that you’re ruined if it fails. And third, make sure you know when you’ve failed, or you will never learn.
Highlighted by 102 Kindle customers -
But whether we like it or not, trial and error is a tremendously powerful process for solving problems in a complex world, while expert leadership is not.
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To produce new ideas we must overcome our tendency to fall in step with those around us, and overcome those with a vested interest in the status quo.
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There is a limit to how much honest feedback most leaders really want to hear; and because we know this, most of us sugar-coat our opinions whenever we speak to a powerful person. In a deep hierarchy, that process is repeated many times, until the truth is utterly concealed inside a thick layer of sweet-talk. There is some evidence that the more ambitious a person is, the more he will choose to be a yes-man – and with good reason, because yes-men tend to be rewarded.
Highlighted by 63 Kindle customers
Authors & Contributors edit
- Tim Harford (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: Add the language.
Publisher: Add the publisher.
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: Add the publication date.
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Add the publisher.
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: Add the publication date.
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: 320
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 658
Popular Tags
Links to Supplemental Material edit
- Planet Money: The Failure Tour of New York: NPR's Planet Money Podcast, in which the author takes the team on a tour of New York city's 'failures.'
- Tim Hartford - Adapt: The author's website for the book.
- Video on TED.com - Tim Harford: Trial, error, and the God Complex: Author's TED talk relating to a chapter of "Adapt."
Books Cited by This Book edit
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