The Logic of Failure

Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations

Dietrich Dörner

Publisher: Perseus, 1997, 222 pages

ISBN: 0-201-47948-6

Keywords: Strategy

Last modified: Aug. 4, 2021, 3:01 p.m.

In The Logic of Failure, Dietrich Dörner identifies the roots of catastrophe, the small, perfectly sensible steps that sets the stage for disaster. In incisive analysis of real-life situations and often hilarious computer simulations he helps all those involved in any kind of strategic planning recognize and avoid such logical yet devastating errors.

  1. Some Examples
    • The Lamentable Fate of Tanaland
    • The Not-Quite-So-Lamentable Fate of Greenvale
    • Chernobyl in Tanaland
  2. The Demands
    • Complexity
    • Dynamics
    • Intransparence
    • Ignorance and Mistaken Hypotheses
    • Steps in Planning and Action
  3. Setting Goals
    • Requirements of Goal Setting
    • General Goals and Repair Service" Behavior
    • Liberty, Equality, and "Voluntary Conscription"
  4. Information and Models
    • Reality, Models, and Information
    • Solving Problems One at a Time
    • "It's the Environment"
    • Prime numbers and Tourist Traffic, or Moltke and Forest Fires
    • The Pale Cast of Thought
  5. Time Sequences
    • Time and Space
    • Lily Pads, Grains of Rice, and AIDS
    • A Premature All Clear?
    • Laymen and Experts
    • "Twenty-eight Is a Good Number"
    • Predators and Prey
    • The Moths of Kuera
  6. Planning
    • "Go Make Yourself a Plan …
    • Rumpelstiltskin
    • Learn by Making Mistakes? Not Necessarily!
  7. So What Do We Do?

Reviews

The Logic of Failure

Reviewed by Roland Buresund

Very Good ******** (8 out of 10)

Last modified: May 21, 2007, 2:47 a.m.

A very good walkthrough of why people (especially managers) act illogically. Worth reading, as it gives a new concept after groupthink.

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