THE LOGIC OF FAILURE
Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situtations
Dietrich Dörner, 1996, Perseus Books
Created: November 9th, 2003 Sunday 15:36, Ankara
This book is about decision making, problem solving and psychological aspects of planning. Notes that I took while reading:
- "People with good intentions usually have few qualms about pursuing their goals. As a result, incompetence that would otherwise have remained harmless often becomes dangerous, especially as incompetent people with good intentions rarely suffer the qualms of conscience that sometimes inhibit the doings of competent people with bad intentions. The conviction that our intentions are unquestionably good may sanctify the most questionable means."(p.8)
- "...real world decision-making processes are rarely well documented, and it is hard, if not impossible, to reconstruct them. Reports on real processes of this kind are often unintentionally distorted or even intentionally falsified."(p.9)
- "As Brecht observed late in his life, advocates of progress often have too low an opinion of what already exists. When we set out to change things, in other words, we don't pay enough attention to what we want to leave unchanged. But an analysis of what should be retained gives us our only opportunity to make implicit goals explicit and to prevent the solution of each problem from generating new problems like heads of the Hydra."(p.58)
- "Surgeons, chess players, mountain climbers, pilots of hang gliders, and many other individuals who engage in activities that are difficult but also yield successes are susceptible to flow situations. A flow situation is one in which tension is built up, then released, a sequence in which the individual experiences fear of failure, triupmh over obstacles, renewed fear of failure, another triupmh, and so on. Inadequate concretization and elaboration of goals can leave a problem solver vulnerable to this phenomenon. An interim goal happened on by chance may seduce him into a flow situation he is helpless to escape (and perhaps may not even want to escape).
In scientific research, for which the immediate applicability of results is often not (nor should be) a criterion of success, 'goal degeneration' of this kind is no minor matter. Many social scientists who have set out to write computer programs they could use to evaluate an experiment have woken up years later to find themselves computer specialists. And they will hardly have realized that they have long since lost sight of thier real goal and become addicted to the fascination, challenges, and triumphs of working with a computer. An interim goal has dislodged the primary goal."(p.62) - "Contradictory goals are the rule, not the exception, in complex situations."(p.65)
- "...we can always correct false hypotheses. And because false hypotheses can ultimately lead us to correct knowledge, they are better than no hypotheses at all."(p.77)
- "One basic error accounts for all the catastrophes: none of the pariticipants realized that they were dealing with a system in which, though not every element interacted with every other, many elements interacted with many others."(p.86)
- "We combat our uncertainty either by acting hastily on the basis of minimal information or by gathering excessive information, which inhibits action and may even increase our uncertainty. Which of these patterns we follow depends on time pressure or the lack of it."(p.104)
- "Children, and many an adult, will be amazed at the answer to the following problem. There is one water lily growing in a pond...In early spring, this lily has one pad...After a week, the lily has two pads; after the following week, four pads. After sixteen weeks the pond is half covered. How much longer will it take before the whole pond is covered? If we assume that the water lily will continue to spread at a constant rate, then the pond will be covered in only one more week because up to this point the lily pads have doubled each week. Obvious as this may seem, the problem still stumps many people. If it has taken the water lily sixteen weeks to cover half the pond, they reason, then how in the world can it manage to cover the other half in only one week?"(p.110)
- "In the real world, people tend even more to overgeneralize from local experience, to ritualize, and to believe that no rationally comprehensible principle is at work and that they are dupes of some mean-spirited practical joke."(p.137)
- "Hans Grote, a building contractor observes, a soccer coach will not tell one of his forwards that he can be certain of scoring if, in the sixth minute of play, he approaches the opponent's goal from the right at an angle of 22 degrees and, 17 meters in front of the goal, kicks the ball at an angle of ascent of 10 degrees, 11 minutes. Detailed planning in this context is a waste of time.
In very complex and quickly changing situations the most reasonable strategy is to plan only in rough outline and to delegate as many decisions as possible to subordinates. These subordinates will need considerable independence and a thorough understanding of the overall plan. Such strategies require a 'a redundancy of potential command', that is, many individuals who are capable of carrying out leadership tasks within the context of the general directives."(p.161) - "...experience does not always make us smart. Experience can also make us dumb."(p.170)
- "Methodism is dangerous because a change in some minor detail that does not alter the overall picture of the situation in any appreciable way can make completely different measures necessary to achieve the same goal."(p.171)
- "I think that the explanation is 'operative intelligence,' the knowledge that individuals have about the use of their intellectual capabilities and skills. In dealing with complex problems we cannot handle in the same way all the different situations we encounter. Sometimes we must perform detailed analyses; at other times it is better simply to size up a situation. Sometimes we need a comprehensive but rough outline of a situation; at other times we may have to give close attention to details. Sometimes we need to define our goals very clearly and analyze carefully, before we act, exactly what it is we want to achieve; at other times it is better simply to go to work and muddle through. Sometimes we need to think more 'holistically,' more in pictures, at other times more analytically. Sometimes we need to sit back and see what develops; at other times we have to move very quickly."(p.192)
- "..the ability to deal with problems in the most appropriate way is the hallmark of wisdom rather than of genius."(p.193)
