The Power of Failure


Book Description

Thinking of oneself as self-employed - and the boss of one's life and work - is the key to personal and professional development, says Cliff Hakim. He shows how to use his pioneering Worklife Creed as a basis for a new, satisfying philosophy of work and life. Providing a clear roadmap for finding purpose and passion in work, this revised edition includes a refined Worklife Creed, greater emphasis on taking full responsibility for one's worklife and understanding and expressing one's own uniqueness, and a Who's the Boss? section that acts as a practical and potent take-anywhere toolbox.




Learning From Failures in Orthopedic Trauma


Book Description

Numerous advances in basic research, surgical techniques, practice, and patient care have revolutionized surgery over the last 60 years and made the field with its many subspecialties more diverse but also more complex. The surgical profession places high demands on surgeons who must often make the right split-second decisions. This can easily lead to misjudgments or mistakes. Learning From Failures in Orthopedic Trauma—Key Points for Success is the first book of its kind to give surgeons the opportunity to learn from failures without making them themselves. Based on the Spanish book Errores en la Osteosíntesis by Rafael Orozco Delclós, this publication offers real case examples that have been collected over the past 25 years. It is an essential and valuable resource as it specifically examines the reasons and responses to surgical error in real cases from different anatomical regions of the body, thus helping surgeons avoid the most frequent errors in osteosynthesis. The collection of more than 70 cases will help surgeons recognize and avoid common failures, start reflecting in action, present failures as positive learning opportunities, and bring that knowledge into their daily practice. The book is divided into 9 sections that analyze different types of failures. Key features are: Analysis of failures to help surgeons avoid making mistakes that lead to those errors More than 20 detailed and illustrative case-based chapters that analyze failures and offer tips to successfully prevent those mistakes More than 1,100 x-rays, clinical images, and illustrations




Evaluation Failures


Book Description

Evaluation Failures: 22 Tales of Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned is a candid collection of stories from seasoned evaluators from a variety of sectors sharing professional mistakes they have made in the past, and what they learned moving forward. As the only book of its kind, editor Kylie Hutchinson has collected a series of engaging, real-life examples that are both entertaining and informative. Each story offers universal lessons as takeaways, and discussion questions for reflective practice. The book is the perfect companion to anyone working in the evaluation field, and to instructors of program evaluation courses who want to bring the real world into their classroom.




Why We Fail


Book Description

Just as pilots and doctors improve by studying crash reports and postmortems, experience designers can improve by learning how customer experience failures cause products to fail in the marketplace. Rather than proselytizing a particular approach to design, Why We Fail holistically explores what teams actually built, why the products failed, and how we can learn from the past to avoid failure ourselves.




Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Failures


Book Description

Unlike other volumes in the current literature, this book provides insight for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners on what doesn’t work. Documenting detailed case studies of project failure matters, not only as an illustration of experienced challenges but also as projects do not always follow step-by-step protocols of preconceived and theorised processes. Bookended by a framing introduction by the editors and a conclusion written by Julie Thompson Klein, each chapter ends with a reflexive section that synthesizes lessons learned and key take-away points for the reader. Drawing on a wide range of international case studies and with a strong environmental thread throughout, the book reveals a range of failure scenarios for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects, including: • Projects that did not get off the ground; • Projects that did not have the correct personnel for specified objectives; • Projects that did not reach their original objectives but met other objectives; • Projects that failed to anticipate important differences among collaborators. Illustrating causal links in real life projects, this volume will be of significant relevance to scholars and practitioners looking to overcome the challenges of conducting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.




Failures in Group Work


Book Description

In Failures in Group Work, author Robert K. Conyne presents a model for effective group leadership and suggests that significant failures, when handled effectively, can be understood in terms of this model. This volume provides detailed descriptions of actual failure events in group leadership. Conyne includes two cases for each of the major types of group work such as task groups, psychoeducational groups, counseling groups, and psychotherapy groups. There is no other group work book like this one that approaches succeeding as a group leader by examining what is not working and moving from there. Richly written, personal case studies are used to examine the inner workings and common mistakes of task group leaders, counseling group leaders, and psychotherapy group leaders. The author takes the reader into the world of practical experience from which powerful learning lessons are cultivated, drawn from his decades of experience. Failures in Group Work can be used as a core textbook for courses in group counseling, group therapy, group process, social work with groups, and other group-oriented courses.




The Fearless Organization


Book Description

Conquer the most essential adaptation to the knowledge economy The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth offers practical guidance for teams and organizations who are serious about success in the modern economy. With so much riding on innovation, creativity, and spark, it is essential to attract and retain quality talent—but what good does this talent do if no one is able to speak their mind? The traditional culture of “fitting in” and “going along” spells doom in the knowledge economy. Success requires a continuous influx of new ideas, new challenges, and critical thought, and the interpersonal climate must not suppress, silence, ridicule or intimidate. Not every idea is good, and yes there are stupid questions, and yes dissent can slow things down, but talking through these things is an essential part of the creative process. People must be allowed to voice half-finished thoughts, ask questions from left field, and brainstorm out loud; it creates a culture in which a minor flub or momentary lapse is no big deal, and where actual mistakes are owned and corrected, and where the next left-field idea could be the next big thing. This book explores this culture of psychological safety, and provides a blueprint for bringing it to life. The road is sometimes bumpy, but succinct and informative scenario-based explanations provide a clear path forward to constant learning and healthy innovation. Explore the link between psychological safety and high performance Create a culture where it’s “safe” to express ideas, ask questions, and admit mistakes Nurture the level of engagement and candor required in today’s knowledge economy Follow a step-by-step framework for establishing psychological safety in your team or organization Shed the “yes-men” approach and step into real performance. Fertilize creativity, clarify goals, achieve accountability, redefine leadership, and much more. The Fearless Organization helps you bring about this most critical transformation.




Failing in the Field


Book Description

A revealing look at the common causes of failures in randomized control experiments during field reseach—and how to avoid them All across the social sciences, from development economics to political science, researchers are going into the field to collect data and learn about the world. Successful randomized controlled trials have brought about enormous gains, but less is learned when projects fail. In Failing in the Field, Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel examine the taboo subject of failure in field research so that researchers might avoid the same pitfalls in future work. Drawing on the experiences of top social scientists working in developing countries, this book describes five common categories of failures, reviews six case studies in detail, and concludes with reflections on best (and worst) practices for designing and running field projects, with an emphasis on randomized controlled trials. Failing in the Field is an invaluable “how-not-to” guide to conducting fieldwork and running randomized controlled trials in development settings.




Adapt


Book Description

In this groundbreaking book, Tim Harford, the Undercover Economist, shows us a new and inspiring approach to solving the most pressing problems in our lives. When faced with complex situations, we have all become accustomed to looking to our leaders to set out a plan of action and blaze a path to success. Harford argues that today's challenges simply cannot be tackled with ready-made solutions and expert opinion; the world has become far too unpredictable and profoundly complex. Instead, we must adapt. Deftly weaving together psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, physics, and economics, along with the compelling story of hard-won lessons learned in the field, Harford makes a passionate case for the importance of adaptive trial and error in tackling issues such as climate change, poverty, and financial crises—as well as in fostering innovation and creativity in our business and personal lives. Taking us from corporate boardrooms to the deserts of Iraq, Adapt clearly explains the necessary ingredients for turning failure into success. It is a breakthrough handbook for surviving—and prospering— in our complex and ever-shifting world.




Billion Dollar Lessons


Book Description

”This book is your chance to learn from others’ mistakes.”-- Entrepreneur In the 1960s, IBM CEO Tom Watson called an executive into his office after his venture lost $10 million. The man assumed he was being fired. Watson told him, “Fired? Hell, I spent $10 million educating you. I just want to be sure you learned the right lessons.” There are thousands of books about successful companies but virtually none about the lessons to be learned from those that crash and burn. Now Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui draw on research into more than 750 flameouts to reveal the seven biggest reasons for business failure.