Black Box Thinking: Growth Mindset and the Secrets of High Performance

by Matthew Syed

Failure is inevitable in a complex world. This is precisely why learning from mistakes is so imperative. But in healthcare, doctors are not supposed to make mistakes.

we are hardwired to think that the world is simpler than it really is.

In healthcare, the assumptions are very different. Failures are seen not as an inevitable consequence of complexity, but as indictments of those who make them,

the real world contains greater complexity than just wind and gravity: there are endless variables and interdependencies.

Systems and organisations that foster the growth of knowledge of all kinds will dominate. This is the insight that the high-tech world has been gravitating towards

when these ideas are not checked by the feedback of criticism, they have nothing to respond to. Criticism surfaces problems. It brings difficulties to light. This forces us to think afresh.

Removing failure from innovation is like removing oxygen from a fire.

Imagination is not fragile. It feeds off flaws, difficulties and problems. Insulating ourselves from failures – whether via brainstorming guidelines, the familiar cultural taboo on criticism or the influence of cognitive dissonancefn41 – is to rob one of our most valuable mental faculties of fuel.

‘The great task, rarely achieved, is to blend creative intensity with relentless discipline so as to amplify the creativity rather than destroy it,’

failure is a blessing, not a curse. It is the jolt that inspires creativity and the selection test that drives evolution.

managers in charge of pilots design optimal conditions rather than representative ones. Thus the pilot doesn’t produce knowledge about what won’t work.