Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It

by Chris Clearfield, András Tilcsik

Overview

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2018 BY THE FINANCIAL TIMES

A groundbreaking take on how complexity causes failure in all kinds of modern systems—from social media to air travel—this practical and entertaining book reveals how we can prevent meltdowns in business and life

"Endlessly fascinating, brimming with insight, and more fun than a book about failure has any right to be, Meltdown will transform how you think about the systems that govern our lives. This is a wonderful book."—Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better

A crash on the Washington, D.C. metro system. An accidental overdose in a state-of-the-art hospital. An overcooked holiday meal. At first glance, these disasters seem to have little in common. But surprising new research shows that all these events—and the myriad failures that dominate headlines every day—share similar causes. By understanding what lies behind these failures, we can design better systems, make our teams more productive, and transform how we make decisions at work and at home.

Weaving together cutting-edge social science with riveting stories that take us from the frontlines of the Volkswagen scandal to backstage at the Oscars, and from deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico to the top of Mount Everest, Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik explain how the increasing complexity of our systems creates conditions ripe for failure and why our brains and teams can't keep up. They highlight the paradox of progress: Though modern systems have given us new capabilities, they've become vulnerable to surprising meltdowns—and even to corruption and misconduct.

But Meltdown isn't just about failure; it's about solutions—whether you're managing a team or the chaos of your family's morning routine. It reveals why ugly designs make us safer, how a five-minute exercise can prevent billion-dollar catastrophes, why teams with fewer experts are better at managing risk, and why diversity is one of our best safeguards against failure. The result is an eye-opening, empowering, and entirely original book—one that will change the way you see our complex world and your own place in it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780735222632
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/20/2018
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Chris Clearfield is a former derivatives trader who worked in New York, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. He is a licensed commercial pilot and a graduate of Harvard University, where he studied physics and biology. Chris has written about complexity and failure for The Guardian, Forbes, and the Harvard Kennedy School Review. He lives in Seattle.

András Tilcsik holds the Canada Research Chair in Strategy, Organizations, and Society at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. He has been recognized as one of the world's top forty business professors under forty and as one of thirty management thinkers most likely to shape the future of organizations. The United Nations named his course on organizational failure as the best course on disaster risk management in a business school. He lives in Toronto.

Table of Contents

Prologue: A Day Like Any Other 1

Part 1 Failure All Around Us

1 The Danger Zone 15

2 Deep Waters, New Horizons 35

3 Hacking, Fraud, and All the News That's Unfit to Print 57

Part 2 Conquering Complexity

4 Out of the Danger Zone 81

5 Complex Systems, Simple Tools 99

6 Reading the Writing on the Wall 121

7 The Anatomy of Dissent 149

8 The Speed Bump Effect 175

9 Strangers in a Strange Land 195

10 Surprise! 219

Epilogue: The Golden Age of Meltdowns 241

Acknowledgments 247

Notes 251

Index 287

Editorial Reviews

01/15/2018
Clearfield, a former derivatives trader, and Tilcsik, a management academic, share cautionary tales of disaster resulting from small vulnerabilities in large systems. Their analysis is enlightening but they flounder in translating their insights into usable takeaways. Clearfield and Tilcsik’s approach centers on sociologist Charles Perrow’s 1984 theory that as a system’s complexity and “tight coupling” (a lack of slack between different parts) increase, the “danger zone” does as well. Clear, well-paced storytelling around diverse events, including a fatal D.C. Metro train accident, Three Mile Island, the collapse of Enron, Volkswagen’s emissions cheating, the Flint water crisis, the 2017 Oscars mix-up, and the commandeering of a Starbucks hashtag by the company’s critics, will keep readers interested, whether or not they are invested in the organizational lessons. The solutions offered, however, tend toward the less-than-revolutionary: keeping decision-making parameters clear, increasing workforce diversity, and building organizational cultures in which dissent is genuinely encouraged. Clearfield and Tilcsik’s most important warning is about the “normalization of deviance,” when people come to redefine commonly encountered risks as acceptable, as can occur when automated warnings constantly cry wolf in hospitals. This manual articulates the ubiquitous nature of system failure well, but its approaches to “reducing complexity and adding slack” are too vague to be practically implementable. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Meltdown effectively conveys why addressing systemic failures is both difficult and essential. . . . Where Meltdown really hits its stride is in taking on the factors that promote groupthink and discourage dissent.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Analysis of why things go wrong is always more exciting to read than praise for everything working out. . . . A compellingly written investigation of interesting case studies in calamity.”—Financial Times, Business Books of the Month

“Thought-provoking. . . . Clearfield and Tilcsik colorfully explain why your job, like everyone else’s in today’s global economy, is becoming part of bigger networks of co-dependent systems, laden with unforeseeable risks and unimaginable outcomes. . . . The readers also offer some calming practical advice you can pack as a parachute. Read their pages and maybe, just maybe, you can avoid—or at least minimize—your own forthcoming descent into chaos.”—Forbes

“Endlessly fascinating, brimming with insight, and more fun than a book about failure has any right to be, Meltdown will transform how you think about the systems that govern our lives. This is a wonderful book.”—Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better

“Meltdown is not for the faint of heart. In crisp, compelling prose, Christopher Clearfield and András Tilcsik explain why failures occur so often in today’s unfathomably complex systems. Their insights and takeaways offer crucial guidance for avoiding your own disasters.”—Daniel H. Pink, author of To Sell is Human and Drive
 
“Too often, we blame failures on bad apples when the real culprits are bad barrels. This engaging, evidence-based book sheds light on why blunders and bankruptcies happen—and how you can get better at designing systems to prevent them.”—Adam Grant, author of Originals and co-author of Option B

“Meltdown is essential reading for any leader. We are all human. We all make mistakes. But in complex, whirlwind environments, those mistakes can spiral quickly out of control. This book can help.”
—Anne-Marie Slaughter, author of Unfinished Business

“As technology advances, it brings an explosion of complexity and interdependence that can threaten our most critical systems and organizations in unforeseen ways. Meltdown is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand these dangers and what can be done to address them.”—Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots

“It is rare to have the pleasure of reading a book that tackles a complex issue and provides a new way of thinking that is both rigorous and practical. Meltdown is such a book. I not only enjoyed it but also learned a lot about the world—most of it utterly counterintuitive—and even something important about myself. A valuable read for anyone who would rather shape their world than just let it happen to them.”—Roger Martin, author of The Design of Business
 
“A cautionary study in how complex systems can easily go awry… A useful, thought-provoking book.”—Kirkus

From the Publisher

2017-12-24
If it can be built, it can fall apart: a cautionary study in how complex systems can easily go awry.As systems become more complex, guided by artificial intelligence and algorithms as well as human experience, they become more likely to fail. The result, write one-time derivatives trader and commercial pilot Clearfield and Tilcsik (Univ. of Toronto Rotman School of Management), is that we are now "in the golden age of meltdowns," confronted on all sides by things that fall apart, whether the financial fortunes of entrepreneurs, the release valves of dam plumbing, or the ailerons of jetliners. The authors examine numerous case studies of how miscommunications and failed checklists figure into disaster, as with one notorious air crash where improperly handled oxygen canisters produced a fatal in-flight fire: "The investigation," they write, "revealed a morass of mistakes, coincidences, and everyday confusions." Against this, Clearfield and Tilcsik helpfully propose ways in which the likelihood of disaster or unintended consequences can be lessened: cross-training, for instance, so that members of a team know something of one another's jobs and responsibilities, and iterative processes of checking and cross-checking. At times, the authors venture into matters of controversy, as when they observe that mandatory diversity training yields more rather than less racist behavior and suggest that "targeted recruitment" of underrepresented groups sends a more positive message: "Help us find a greater variety of promising employees!" Though the underlying argument isn't new—the authors draw heavily on the work of social scientist Charles Perrow, particularly his 1984 book Normal Accidents—the authors' body of examples is relatively fresh, if sometimes not so well remembered today—e.g., the journalistic crimes of Jayson Blair, made possible by a complex accounting system that just begged to be gamed.Programmers, social engineers, and management consultants are among the many audiences for this useful, thought-provoking book.

Kirkus Review