Society is intolerant of error. We need to change this mindset. A doctor turned pilot applies his expertise to the problem
Our heavily curated Instagram society has become very intolerant of error. In an era where everything we present is airbrushed, tweaked, filtered and polished before being released into the wild, we labour under the misapprehension that the real world is similar. We are sadly mistaken. The real world is messy, imperfect and error-prone. My book, Oops! Why Things Go Wrong, explores why error is inevitable, how it affects many different industries and areas of society, sometimes catastrophically, and most importantly, what we can do about it.
It’s Not Your Fault
Society’s development has accelerated at warp speed over recent decades and shows no signs of slowing down. Unfortunately, our brains have had trouble keeping up and are trying to function in a highly complex, rapidly changing environment whilst still running on caveman software!
This dichotomy is the essence of what I explore in my book. The mismatch between the fast-paced environment and our inability to respond appropriately results in errors inevitably occurring. This is merely an inconvenience in many areas, but in safety critical industries such as aviation and healthcare it can literally mean life or death.
Society is, unfortunately, quite intolerant of error, especially in others! We need to change this mindset. Error is nothing to be ashamed of. The only way to come close to avoiding error is to be so cautious and risk averse that we stifle innovation altogether, and in healthcare that would mean avoiding intervention in any but the easiest of cases….