{"id":596,"date":"2013-12-20T17:00:12","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T11:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/precog.iiitd.edu.in\/blog\/?p=596"},"modified":"2013-12-20T18:27:34","modified_gmt":"2013-12-20T12:57:34","slug":"expertise-is-valuable-but-most-certainly-not-sufficient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/precog.iiit.ac.in\/blog\/?p=596","title":{"rendered":"“Expertise is valuable but most certainly not sufficient”"},"content":{"rendered":"
After finishing the last book “The Art of The Start\u201d by Guy\u00a0Kawasaki<\/a>\u00a0I wanted to read more, so went and picked “The Checklist Manifesto:\u00a0How to Get Things Right”<\/a> by Atul Gawande<\/a>\u00a0Thanks\u00a0to Bill Gates and Vinod Khosla for recommending this book in their
\nrecommendations<\/a>.\u00a0It was a completely different experience reading this book, this is<\/div>\n
probably the first book that I ever read written by a Medical Surgeon. Below are some notes \/ takeaways from the book.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\n
B: “necessary fallibility” — Some things that we want to do and\u00a0simply beyond our capacityB: But sometime over the last several decades — and it is only over\u00a0the last several decades — science has filled in enough knowledge to\u00a0make ineptitude as much our struggle as ignorance.B: If the knowledge of the best thing to do in a given situation does\u00a0not exist, we are happy to have people simply make their best effort.\u00a0But if the knowledge exists and is not applied correctly, it is\u00a0difficult not to be infuriated.PK: I was scared reading a lot of medical examples that author quotes,\u00a0e.g. the one where he makes a mistake in the surgery that he did. But,\u00a0I believe the Doctors (who save human beings) are to be fully believed\u00a0and that is when the medicine that we take suggested by them\u00a0completely works on us.<\/p>\n

B: One needs practice to achieve mastery, a body of experience before\u00a0one achieves real success. And if what we are missing when we fail is\u00a0individual skill, then what is needed is simply more training and\u00a0practice.<\/p>\n

PK: I am reminded of the 10,000hrs concept from Malcom Gladwell’s\u00a0“The Outliers”<\/a>.\u00a0There are some of my friends who don’t believe in this concept, at\u00a0least about 2 years back when I had read Outlier and described it to\u00a0them, they were not ready to take it, I don’t know about their impression now (you will know if you are the one I am referring to here).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

B: But, really, does it take all that [an M.D. and a Ph.D. in public health from John Hopkins, referring to Peter Pronovost] to figure out\u00a0what anyone who has made a to-do list figured out ages ago? Well,\u00a0maybe yes.PK: :-)B: The author asserts, “Expertise is valuable but most certainly not\u00a0sufficient” in solving complex problems.B: “Forcing functions”: relatively straightforward solutions that\u00a0force the necessary behavior — solutions like checklists.<\/p>\n

B: Author repeats this line \/ concept “You want people to\u00a0make sure to get the stupid stuff right.”\u00a0multiple times in the book, I\u00a0think it is one of the strong takeaways I have from the book.<\/p>\n

B: A great line to show that group work can be more productive \/\u00a0effective than individuals, “Man is fallible, but may be men are less so.” This thought is reinforced in multiple places in the book.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

B: No, the real lesson is that under conditions of true complexity —\u00a0where the knowledge required exceed that of any individual and\u00a0unpredictability reigns — efforts to dictate every step from the\u00a0center will fail.B: I asked a WHO (World Health Organization) official whether the\u00a0organization had a guide book on how to carry out successful global\u00a0public health programs. She regarded me with a look that a parent\u00a0might give toddler searching the dog’s mouth for the thing that makes\u00a0the barking noise. It’s a cute idea but idiotic.B: Giving people a chance to say something [introducing themselves,\u00a0and mention concerns] at the start seemed to activate their sense of\u00a0participation and responsibility and their willingness to speak up.PK: Looks like a great principle to adapt when unknown people come\u00a0together to attack a problem or a situation.<\/p>\n

B: Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. The are efficient,\u00a0to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations.\u00a0They do not try to spell out everything — a checklist cannot fly a\u00a0plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

important steps — the ones that even the highly silted professionals in them could miss. Good checklists are, above all, practical.<\/p>\n

B: The power of checklists is limited, Boorman emphasized. They can\u00a0help experts remember how to manage a complex process or configure a\u00a0complex machine. They can make priorities clearer and prompt people to\u00a0function better as a a team. By these, however, checklist cannot make\u00a0anyone follow them.B: What experts like Dan Boorman have recognized is that the reason\u00a0for the delay is not usually laziness or unwillingness. The reason is\u00a0more often that the necessary knowledge has not been translated into a\u00a0simple, usable, and systematic form.PK: Another takeaway from the book for me was, how important it is to\u00a0work with organizations like WHO to have a larger impact in the\u00a0society. Thanks to NASSCOM for giving me the opportunity to work as an\u00a0intern with them during my Ph.D. life, I believe, the experience and the impact one could have working with such organizations is humongous.<\/div>\n
\n
PK: As most of you know, my current area of research is Privacy and\u00a0Security in Online Social Media, during any introductory lecture on\u00a0this topic, I use the picture below. This is a picture from the\u00a0incident where a Airbus A320 crashed \/ landed into the Hudson river\u00a0and Jkrums<\/a>\u00a0tweeted\u00a0about it “http:\/\/twitpic.com\/135xa\u00a0<\/a>– There’s a plane in the Hudson.\u00a0I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.” This tweet is\u00a0one of The 10 Greatest Tweets of All\u00a0Time<\/a>.\u00a0Got to know a lot more about the incident than what I knew before and
\nhow team work and following guidelines \/ principles can be so\u00a0effective.\"\"<\/a>B: The fear people have about the idea of adherence to protocol is rigidity.B: We’re obsessed in medicine with having great components — the best\u00a0drugs, the best devices, the best specialists — but pay little\u00a0attention to how to make them fit together well. Berwick notes how\u00a0wrongheaded this approach is. “Anyone who understand systems well know\u00a0immediately that optimizing parts is not a good route to system\u00a0excellence.”B: The same can be said in numerous other fields. We don’t study\u00a0routine failures in teaching, in law, in government programs, in the\u00a0financial industry, or elsewhere.<\/p>\n

PK: Just focussing on the domain \/ profession that I am involved, I have never come\u00a0across any research or reports showing the failures in teaching. If\u00a0any of you know or find any, please share it with me.<\/p>\n

PK: I took away a lot of things from this book, but some concrete\u00a0steps that I would like to try or see develop: 0. a good checklist for\u00a0students \/ researchers (including myself) writing an academic research paper, addressing minute details\u00a0of preparing the draft. I strongly believe that this checklist may\u00a0differ from authors \/ collaborators to authors \/ collaborators, as\u00a0mentioned in the book, but having some baseline can be very good. 1. a\u00a0good checklist for event organization like a conference \/ workshop. 2.\u00a0a good checklist for creating a usable \/ commercializable ideas \/\u00a0startups. I can see some of my friends running startup screaming now\u00a0saying, there cannot be a checklist for this one \ud83d\ude42 I am going to\u00a0keep my eyes and ears open for developing such and many more\u00a0checklists which can be useful for students \/ faculty \/ academia.<\/p>\n

Among many new words that I picked from this book, here are a few to note:
\n– Asystole: Total cessation of heart function
\n– vicissitude: a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one\u00a0that is unwelcome or unpleasant<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After finishing the last book “The Art of The Start\u201d by Guy\u00a0Kawasaki\u00a0I wanted to read more, so went and picked “The Checklist Manifesto:\u00a0How to Get Things Right” by Atul Gawande\u00a0Thanks\u00a0to Bill Gates and Vinod Khosla for recommending this book in their recommendations.\u00a0It was a completely different experience reading this book, this is probably the first book that I ever read written by a Medical Surgeon. Below are some notes \/ takeaways from the book. B: “necessary fallibility” — Some things that we want to do and\u00a0simply beyond our capacityB: But sometime over the last several decades — and it is only over\u00a0the last several decades — science has filled in enough knowledge to\u00a0make ineptitude as much our struggle as ignorance.B: If the knowledge of the best thing to do in a given situation does\u00a0not exist, we are happy to have people simply make their best effort.\u00a0But if the knowledge exists and is not applied correctly, it is\u00a0difficult not to be infuriated.PK: I was scared reading a lot of medical examples that author quotes,\u00a0e.g. the one where he makes a mistake in the surgery that he did. But,\u00a0I believe the Doctors (who save human beings) are to be fully believed\u00a0and that is when the medicine that we take suggested by them\u00a0completely works on us. B: One needs practice to achieve mastery, a body of experience before\u00a0one achieves real success. And if what we are missing when we fail is\u00a0individual skill, then what is needed is simply more training and\u00a0practice. PK: I am reminded of the 10,000hrs concept from Malcom Gladwell’s\u00a0“The Outliers”.\u00a0There are some of my friends who don’t believe in this concept, at\u00a0least about 2 years back when I had read Outlier and described it to\u00a0them, they were not ready to take it, I don’t know about their impression now (you will know if you are the one I am referring to here). B: But, really, does it take all that [an M.D. and a Ph.D. in public health from John Hopkins, referring to Peter Pronovost] to figure out\u00a0what anyone who has made a to-do list figured out ages ago? Well,\u00a0maybe yes.PK: :-)B: The author asserts, “Expertise is valuable but most certainly not\u00a0sufficient” in solving complex problems.B: “Forcing functions”: relatively straightforward solutions that\u00a0force the necessary behavior — solutions like checklists. B: Author repeats this line \/ concept “You want people to\u00a0make sure to get the stupid stuff right.”\u00a0multiple times in the book, I\u00a0think it is one of the strong takeaways I have from the book. B: A great line to show that group work can be more productive \/\u00a0effective than individuals, “Man is fallible, but may be men are less so.” This thought is reinforced in multiple places in the book. B: No, the real lesson is that under conditions of true complexity —\u00a0where the knowledge required exceed that of any individual and\u00a0unpredictability reigns — efforts to dictate every step from the\u00a0center will fail.B: I asked a WHO (World Health Organization) official whether the\u00a0organization had a guide book on how to carry out successful global\u00a0public health programs. She regarded me with a look that a parent\u00a0might give toddler searching the dog’s mouth for the thing that makes\u00a0the barking noise. It’s a cute idea but idiotic.B: Giving people a chance to say something [introducing themselves,\u00a0and mention concerns] at the start seemed to activate their sense of\u00a0participation and responsibility and their willingness to speak up.PK: Looks like a great principle to adapt when unknown people come\u00a0together to attack a problem or a situation. B: Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. The are efficient,\u00a0to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations.\u00a0They do not try to spell out everything — a checklist cannot fly a\u00a0plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps — the ones that even the highly silted professionals in them could miss. Good checklists are, above all, practical. B: The power of checklists is limited, Boorman emphasized. They can\u00a0help experts remember how to manage a complex process or configure a\u00a0complex machine. They can make priorities clearer and prompt people to\u00a0function better as a a team. By these, however, checklist cannot make\u00a0anyone follow them.B: What experts like Dan Boorman have recognized is that the reason\u00a0for the delay is not usually laziness or unwillingness. The reason is\u00a0more often that the necessary knowledge has not been translated into a\u00a0simple, usable, and systematic form.PK: Another takeaway from the book for me was, how important it is to\u00a0work with organizations like WHO to have a larger impact in the\u00a0society. Thanks to NASSCOM for giving me the opportunity to work as an\u00a0intern with them during my Ph.D. life, I believe, the experience and the impact one could have working with such organizations is humongous. PK: As most of you know, my current area of research is Privacy and\u00a0Security in Online Social Media, during any introductory lecture on\u00a0this topic, I use the picture below. This is a picture from the\u00a0incident where a Airbus A320 crashed \/ landed into the Hudson river\u00a0and Jkrums\u00a0tweeted\u00a0about it “http:\/\/twitpic.com\/135xa\u00a0– There’s a plane in the Hudson.\u00a0I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.” This tweet is\u00a0one of The 10 Greatest Tweets of All\u00a0Time.\u00a0Got to know a lot more about the incident than what I knew before and how team work and following guidelines \/ principles can be so\u00a0effective.B: The fear people have about the idea of adherence to protocol is rigidity.B: We’re obsessed in medicine with having great components — the best\u00a0drugs, the best devices, the best specialists — but pay little\u00a0attention to how to make them fit together well. Berwick notes how\u00a0wrongheaded this approach is. “Anyone who understand systems well know\u00a0immediately that optimizing parts is not a good route to system\u00a0excellence.”B: The same can be said in numerous other fields. We don’t study\u00a0routine failures in teaching, in law, in government programs, in the\u00a0financial industry, or elsewhere. PK: Just focussing on the domain \/ profession that I am involved, I have never come\u00a0across any research or reports showing the failures in teaching. If\u00a0any of you know or find any, please share it with me. PK: I took away a lot of things from this book, but some concrete\u00a0steps that I would like to try or see develop: 0. a good checklist for\u00a0students \/ researchers (including myself) writing an academic research paper, addressing minute details\u00a0of preparing the draft. I strongly believe that this checklist may\u00a0differ from authors \/ collaborators to authors \/ collaborators, as\u00a0mentioned in the book, but having some baseline can be very good. 1. a\u00a0good checklist for event organization like a conference \/ workshop. 2.\u00a0a good checklist for creating a usable \/ commercializable ideas \/\u00a0startups. I can see some of my friends running startup screaming now\u00a0saying, there cannot be a checklist for this one \ud83d\ude42 I am going to\u00a0keep my eyes and ears open for developing such and many more\u00a0checklists which can be useful for students \/ faculty \/ academia. Among many new words that I picked from this book, here are a few to note: – Asystole: Total cessation of heart function – vicissitude: a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one\u00a0that is unwelcome or unpleasant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/precog.iiit.ac.in\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/precog.iiit.ac.in\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/precog.iiit.ac.in\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/precog.iiit.ac.in\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/precog.iiit.ac.in\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/precog.iiit.ac.in\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607,"href":"https:\/\/precog.iiit.ac.in\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/precog.iiit.ac.in\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/precog.iiit.ac.in\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/precog.iiit.ac.in\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}