How to Get Things Right
Atul Gawande
In The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande shares his personal journey as a surgeon and how he came to discover the profound benefits of how something as “simple” as a checklist could save millions of lives. This journey takes you through numerous industries ranging from skyscraper construction to managing investment portfolios, through flight operations to surgery, even within the kitchens of New York City restaurants. In essence, he demonstrates that if there is any opportunity for significant loss or gain, a checklist should be implemented to ensure key steps in a process are not overlooked or forgotten.
Known for his attention to safety as a surgeon, it was requested by the WHO (World Health Organization) that he help organize efforts to develop a global program to reduce avoidable deaths and harm from surgery. The result: a checklist. No fancy equipment, no new procedures, no miracle drug, only a tool to help ensure that things get done right. Of course, a checklist can not prevent every catastrophe possible, but it's amazing what a well thought out system can produce. The results were eventually published in The New England Journal of Medicine and the adoption of this simple yet effective protocol was adopted in the hospitals of countries around the world.
Based on the title, my initial assumption was that this was a book about task management. Granted, checklists are often used in task management, but The Checklist Manifesto is something entirely different. Task Management is getting things done, while The Checklist Manifesto is about getting things right. Task Management can be likened to the To Do List in which you are outlining everything that you need to do and then “checking” them off as they are completed. The Checklist Manifesto offers a different approach to the checklist within business and industry, to ensure critical steps are not overlooked or forgotten. In other words, it's not about outlining everything you have to do, rather setting up critical points of evaluation prior to proceeding to the next step in a process.
Of course, checklists can be verbal as well as written. An example of a verbal checklist used frequently within my household is “phone, wallet, keys”. It's pretty self explanatory, if I’m leaving the house, do I have my phone, wallet, and keys. But it extends beyond the house! It's used before leaving a restaurant, a friend's house, really anywhere in which things had the possibility of being left behind. Of course, something like this gets invented after having lost keys, phones, and/or wallets multiple times. Something My wife and I like to call, “lessons learned the hard way”... but not anymore. It has become second nature to mutter “phone, wallet, keys” before departing anywhere. Where in your life could you place a checklist to add some additional insurance and help ensure you get things right the first time!
(...) only over the last several decades – science has filled in enough knowledge to make ineptitude as much our struggle as ignorance. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
Every day there is more and more to manage and get right and learn. And defeat under conditions of complexity occurs far more often despite great effort rather than from a lack of it. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
The volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
Man is fallible, but maybe men are less so. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
There must always be room for judgement, but judgement aided – and even enhanced – by procedure. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
Good checklists (...) are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
The power of checklists is limited, (...) checklists cannot make anyone follow them. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
Even the most expert among us can gain from searching out the patterns of mistakes and failures and putting a few checks in place. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, an embarrassment. It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us – those we aspire to be – handle situations of high stakes and complexity. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
The fear people have about the idea of adherence to protocol is rigidity. They imagine mindless automations, heads down in a checklist, incapable of looking out their windshield and coping with the real world in front of them. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
We are not built for discipline. We are built for novelty and excitement, not for careful attention to detail. Discipline is something we have to work at. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
We are all plagued by failures – by missed subtleties, overlooked knowledge, and outright errors. For the most part, we have imagined that little can be done beyond working harder and harder to catch the problems and clean up after them. Atul Gawande : The Checklist Manifesto
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