The Checklist Manifesto - A book review

Every weekday morning after I wake up to my cell phone alarm, I complete 36 or so tasks before driving my car to work. I consider 12 of these tasks to be critical, e.g. put money clip in back pocket (yes, all wise guys carry a money clip), put reading glasses in cover and in laptop bag. One particular task is mission critical. If I forget to take my laptop to work (has happened a few times over the years), I'd have to drive back home from work to get it. The rest I can improvise. If I forget my watch, I'll check the time on my cell phone or laptop. If I forget my cell phone, I'll call people using my work phone. If I forget my money clip, I'll borrow cash from coworkers. Last Monday morning, I forgot to put the trash out; a rarety. So I gave my mom and sister a full trash bag each time they visited during that week. The following Monday night, I put the remainder trash overflow in my unsuspecting neighbors' trash bins where there was excess capacity.

I've been going through this routine for years, and consider myself a "super specialist" at carrying them out. Yet, I consistently fail at 1-2 of the 12 critical tasks once or twice a week. After years of what feels like groundhog day (the movie), I should be able to sleep walk through these 36 mundane tasks. I fail because I'm under a time pressure, and the tasks are too many for an hour of allotted time (shower, shave, iron shirt are just 3 of the 36). So there is a level of complexity from the sheer number of them. According to Mr. Gawande, a check list of the 12 critical tasks can be of substantial help. This check list is short (12 of 36), and should contain the tasks that are prone to memory lapse with a history. I will not include "eat breakfast" to this list, because unless I suffer from Alzheimers, I will never fail to perform this step.

Now, should I really create a check list to remember to put my sneakers in my trunk along with the rest of my gym attire (when I forget this task, I have to skip working out at the gym on that day)? Not really. But imagine if failure at any of these tasks means putting someone's or hundreds of people's lives in danger. The stakes are that high in the surgical and airline pilot professions, with mind boggling complexity. Mr. Gawande, himself a highly esteemed general surgeon discusses case studies demonstrating consequences of inconceivable failures at the highest professional levels in a multitude of industries, and how a simple idea such as a checklist has proven undeniably that critical failures can be reduced significantly. It is unfortunate that resistance to this idea is rampant. From page 173 of the hardcopy, "We don't like checklists. They can be painstaking... But I don't think the issue here is mere laziness. There's something deeper, more visceral going on when people walk away, not only from saving lives but from making money. 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. The truly great are daring. They improvise." Adapt to the environment, Darwin, expletive happens, I Ching, whatever man, we gotta roll with it (appropriate and timely "Collateral" Tom Cruise quote inserted). "They do not have protocols and checklists."

The checklist is a brilliant and simple idea that is picking up steam thanks to the efforts of Mr. Gawande and those like him. This book should be mandatory reading in colleges and professions with serious health consequences.

The Checklist Manifesto Amazon Link

The Paradox of the United States - a review of The Right Nation

In "The Right Nation - The Penguin Press, NY, 2004", Mr. Micklethwait and Mr. Wooldridge convincingly make the case that the U.S. political landscape has been steering towards the right for decades since Ronald Reagan, and bowing to the pressures of the well organized and mobilized conservative bloc.  By European standards, even liberals in the U.S. are considered to be the right of center, and America is a conservative nation at its core.  “The paradox of the United States is that it is at once both the most admired country in the world and one of the most reviled; outside its borders, “America” has somehow become a code word for technological sophistication, meritocracy and opportunity as well as for primitive justice, imperialism and inequality.” p. 24

Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and subsequent leftist government laws and social programs served as the impetus to the rise and dominance of the conservatives; a trend that is likely to continue in the foreseeable future.  This book was written on the eve of the 2004 elections that put Mr. George W. Bush in the office for a second term.  The authors state that even a Democratic win wouldn’t deter from the rightist agenda.  Former president Clinton, to a large extent advanced the conservative agenda with NAFTA, welfare reform, reduction of government to its smallest size in 35 years, deficit reduction and not blowing the surplus on new liberal programs.  The Democratic  dominance of the executive and legislative branches, spurred by the debacles in Iraq, Afghanistan and a failing economy in the latter part of Bush’s presidency, was short lived.  Following 2 years of ruling the house, senate and the presidency, the Democratic Party suffered the worst defeat in over 40 years in 2010, losing majorities in the House, governorships and state legislatures.

What is intriguing about the conservative movement is that despite its glaring contradictions in ideology, it continues to march ahead unscathed.  From page 9 of the hardcopy:  “How can you trumpet a strong military and a vigorous foreign policy and then insist on small government?  How can you celebrate individualism but then try to subject those individuals to the rule of God?”  Mr. Bush became the president who fed steroids to the monster.  Under his conservative rule, government size increased and spending spiraled out of control, turning Mr. Clinton’s massive surpluses to colossal deficits on a dime, with no end in sight.

What gets short shrift in the book is the blatantly inconvenient truth that the solutions to America’s seemingly insurmountable fiscal problems can be found in neither the right, nor the left ideology.  Rather, the only obvious choice is to cut spending AND increase taxes, tickling no one’s fancy.  Here's Ben Stein, former President Nixon's speech writer on the subject.  Even after the economic meltdown in 2007, the personal consumption rate remains at persistently high levels around 70% of GDP since 2001.  In a world of scarce resources and the rise of the middle class in two of the world’s most populous nations of China and India, current consumption and savings levels are unsustainable.  America can no longer afford to spend and consume its way out of trouble.  The day of reckoning is upon us, albeit it may take another few years to make very painful choices.

Do you really need to pee, or do you just want candy?

I've always been fascinated by the prospect of pursuing a career as an entrepreneur.  I took two entrepreneurship classes at USC as a part of my MBA curriculum, and used my only foray in this field for a class project at the time; an endeavor that paid for two thirds of my exorbitant post graduate program at a private school.

Thanks to Virginia Postrel's "In Praise of Irrational Exuberance - Does a flourishing economy depend on delusion?" posted on BigQuestionsOnline.com, I will no longer consider my professional life as a disappointment for failing to realize my dream of becoming an entrepreneur, and here's why:

Many entrepreneurs are delusional about their chances of success.  Investing time and money in a new business is an "irrational bet" which the entrepreneurial culture encourages.  A few startups get lucky and hit the jackpot.  The rest fizzle out of memory.  This view is what critics of capitalism espouse; that the entrepreneur bunch overestimate their chances of striking it rich.  In truth, however, entrepreneurs are rarely motivated by money alone.  They strive to create something of value, and more importantly, be their own boss.  The idea of working for others is utterly unappealing, and one way or another, a venture will succeed enough to sustain them.

The same illusion is what spurs consumers to consume.  "The glamour of new, as yet- unexperienced goods or experiences thus contain an element of pleasurable, often deliberate self delusion.  We not only enjoy new things, we also enjoy imagining how much we'll enjoy them.  Anticipation and desire themselves are part of consumer pleasure."

And while on the subject of fantasizing, according to an October 2000 Time-CNN poll, 19 percent of Americans were convinced they belonged to the richest 1  percent.  Another 20 percent thought they'd make the rank of the top 1 percent at some point in their lives (the American dream?)  That's quite a turnover in the top 1 percent category to accommodate 20 percent of the population passing through.

We're in the middle of potty training our older daughter.  We offer her candy every time she uses the toilet.  This morning, she asked to use the bathroom for a second time in less than a half hour.  When my wife asked her, "do you really need to pee, or do you just want candy?", she responded "I want candy."  And that, as it turns out, is how I feel about entrepreneurship.  Do I really want to be an entrepreneur, or just toil in thought of being one?  I suspect I just want the candy as well.