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Tag Archives: mistakes
“If it bleeds, we can kill it”
Popped round to a friend’s house, and mid-conversation found myself trying to do Arnold Schwarzenegger’s accent – “if it bleeds, we can kill it” from Predator. Sadly, I came out Mexican. It was in the context of individuals (bullies, specifically) … Continue reading
Posted in activism, bureaucracy, competence, fear
Tagged cognitive limitations, error, mistakes, Mistakes were made
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Nobody really likes it when planes drop out of the sky full of passengers.
Sure, Boeing or Airbus or whoever get to replace the dead metal bird, but that doesn’t really offset the reputational damage, and oh my goodness aren’t the insurance payouts something ridiculous. There’s a lot that can be done to make … Continue reading
Posted in a little self-knowledge, activism, competence, death
Tagged Cognitive Humility, cognitive limitations, mistakes, notechs
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The patriarchy, it hurts. No, I mean it really really HURTS
There’s a bloody brilliant TED talk “what happens when an NGO admits failure” by a guy called David Damberger (it is absolutely worth 13 minutes of your life). And this leads on to a bloody brilliant website called “Admitting Failure.” … Continue reading
Posted in bureaucracy, competence, framing
Tagged cognitive flexibility, Cognitive Humility, cognitive limitations, mistakes, patriarchy
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Leading us all astray?
Thanks to the readers who have added very useful comments and links below my “How little we learn” post. There’s more to come (including some recently published books on the topic), but this cartoon below from xkcd was in my … Continue reading
Posted in competence, humour
Tagged Cognitive Humility, Godwin's Law, mistakes, Tom Lehrer, Werner Von Braun, xkcd
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How little we learn
A couple of weeks ago I had (no) cause to be in an Accident and Emergency department. It is a tale of (my) muppetry that I shall feel secure enough to tell in, oh, fifty years or so. For now, … Continue reading
Achtung Einstellung! Cognitive inertia and all that…
The Einstellung effect is the name given to our habit of sticking with “solutions” that have worked in the past, even if there might be more elegant/simple solutions available… Wikipedia has the info, of course… Einstellung is the creation of … Continue reading
Posted in a little self-knowledge, competence, framing
Tagged cognitive limitations, einstellung, mistakes
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Mistakes, I’ve made a few, but then again…
Another fascinating article about mitsakes and the value (or otherwise) of a Blame Culture… Another serious weakness of the person approach is that by focusing on the individual origins of error, it isolates unsafe acts from their system context. As … Continue reading
Metrics for social movements? Pivot on this, Climate Camp…
What could a bunch of eco-anarchists have learnt from venture capitalists? When and how to pivot. Tim Kastelle kindly pointed me to this post which starts; “At a board meeting last week I watched as the young startup CEO delivered … Continue reading
Posted in activism, bureaucracy, competence, fear
Tagged climate camp, mistakes, movement-building, Pivot, social movements, Steve Blank, Tim Kastelle
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An error isn’t a mistake until you refuse to correct it
In the worms-in-the-Big-Apple movie “City Hall,” which I saw last night, the following quote “An error isn’t a mistake until you refuse to correct it” is ascribed to JFK, whereas the Tinterwebs prefers Orlando A. Battista. And on the subject … Continue reading
Posted in a little self-knowledge, activism, competence, science
Tagged error-correction, mistakes
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