Life is made up of many disasters that we should have seen coming. From slipping over on wet bathroom tiles and falling out of a tree to the Chernobyl disaster and the devastating flooding of New Orleans. However, why, when it seems so obvious that a problem is looming do we allow them to happen? This book pinpoints three of the key reasons for the occurrence of these predictable surprises. The first, cognitive failure where the authorities fail to understand the consequences of their inaction. Secondly is organizational failure where the stakeholders may very well understand the size of the problem but can't form a cohesive plan of how to deal with it. Thirdly, there is the political failure, which occurs when maintaining a reputation, votes, and public opinion is placed before "doing the right thing". Now each of these failures is compounded by a very human trait and that is to defer making decisions and maintain the status quo. Indeed so ingrained is our wish for stability that it is often only when the cost Vs benefit see saw is swinging wildly out of our favor that we decide to act, leaving the door ajar for disaster.

Pro-active problem solving is often time consuming and expensive making it sometimes difficult to gain traction and the motivation to change tack early on. However, the benefits of reacting to problems early and initiating a process of continuous improvement has proved to pay dividends - for some examples see "Chasing the Rabbit" as reviewed on 15th June.

Predictable disasters may well be part of the human condition but being able to quickly prioritize and evaluate which disasters should be dealt with pro-actively is a skill that should be developed by us all. The book was reviewed on radio 2GB, a podcast is available here.