Learning Lessons from the Book 📚Black Box Thinking

What is Black Box Thinking?

According to Syed, “[Black Box Thinking] is about the willingness and tenacity to investigate the lessons that often exist when we fail, but which we rarely exploit.”

 Furthermore, ““It is about creating systems and cultures that enable organizations to learn from errors, rather than being threatened by them.”

• Success can only happen when we confront our mistakes

• More people die from mistakes made by doctors and hospitals than from traffic accidents.

• The single greatest obstacle to progress is failing to learn from mistakes.

• “A failure to learn from mistakes has been one of the single greatest obstacles to human progress.”

• “Society, as a whole, has a deeply contradictory attitude to failure. Even as we find excuses for our own failings, we are quick to blame others who mess up.”

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• “It is partly because we are so willing to blame others for their mistakes that we are so keen to conceal our own. 
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• We anticipate, with remarkable clarity, how people will react, how they will point the finger, and how little time they will take to put themselves in the tough, high-pressure situation in which the error occurred. 
• “Only by redefining failure will we unleash progress, creativity, and resilience.”
• “So, just to re-emphasize, for our purposes a closed loop is where failure doesn’t lead to progress because information on errors and weaknesses is misinterpreted or ignored; an open loop does lead to progress because the feedback is rationally acted upon.”
• “[Black Box Thinking] is about creating systems and cultures that enable organizations to learn from errors, rather than being threatened by them.”
• “In effect, practice is about harnessing the benefits of learning from failure while reducing its cost. 
• It is better to fail in practice in preparation for the big stage than on the big stage itself. 
• This is true of organizations, too, which conduct pilot schemes (and in the case of aviation and other safety-critical industries test ideas in simulators) in order to learn, before rolling out new ideas or procedures. 
• The more we can fail in practice, the more we can learn, enabling us to succeed when it really matters.”
• “When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. 
• We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, and new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.”
• “Marginal gains are not about making small changes and hoping they fly. Rather, it is about breaking down a big problem into small parts in order to rigorously establish what works and what doesn’t.”
• “If we wish to fulfill our potential as individuals and organizations, we must redefine failure.”