Categorie archief: Book

Managing the Unexpected (2015)

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Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity.

Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe | August 2015 (original 2001)

Improve your company’s ability to avoid or manage crises! ‘Managing the Unexpected’, Third Edition, is a thoroughly revised text that offers an updated look at the groundbreaking ideas explored in the first and second editions.

Revised to reflect events emblematic of the unique challenges that organisations have faced in recent years, including bank failures, intelligence failures, quality failures, and other organisational misfortunes, often sparked by organisational actions, this critical book focuses on why some organisations are better able to sustain high performance in the face of unanticipated change.

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Een wereld vol patronen

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De geschiedenis van kennis

Rens Bod | maart 2019, Uitgeverij Prometheus

Het idee dat de wereld kan worden begrepen aan de hand van patronen en onderliggende principes is een van de belangrijkste inzichten van de mens. 

Dit boek gaat over deze uniek menselijke zoektocht die meer dan 40.000 jaar geleden begon met het krassen van streepjespatronen op mammoetbotten en die heeft geleid tot de wetenschappen van vandaag. Welke routes heeft menselijke kennis doorlopen om van dit bescheiden begin uit te groeien tot onze moderne inzichten over natuur en cultuur? 

In een meeslepend verhaal geeft Rens Bod antwoord op deze vraag en laat hij zien welke rol patronen en principes in verschillende culturen hebben gespeeld. Hij verschuift de natuurwetenschappen en Europa uit hun centrale positie waarna de ene na de andere ontdekking volgt. Wie wist dat inenting niet in Europa maar in China is uitgevonden? En wie wist dat vele wiskundige en sterrenkundige inzichten op het conto van de Indiase Kerala-school staan? En dat rechtswetenschappelijke concepten zowel de astronomie als de taalkunde hebben vormgegeven? Rens Bod legt het haarfijn uit in deze fenomenale overkoepelende geschiedenis van kennis en wetenschap.

`De geschiedenis van menselijke kennis biedt een goudmijn aan ideeën en praktijken die niet alleen van belang zijn om het verleden te doorgronden maar die ook doorslaggevend kunnen zijn voor het heden. Het is de herculische taak van de historicus om kennispraktijken uit alle perioden en uit alle delen van de wereld bijeen te brengen en toegankelijk te maken.’

Rens Bod is hoogleraar Computational and Digital Humanities aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Hij is gespecialiseerd in de computationele taalkunde en in de geschiedenis van kennis. Zijn eerdere boek De vergeten wetenschappen is vertaald in zeven talen en meermalen bekroond.


Bibliografie

Bod, R. (2019) Een wereld vol patronen: De geschiedenis van kennis. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Prometheus

Over De vergeten wetenschappen:

`Adembenemend rijke wetenschapsstudie (…) baanbrekend historisch overzicht.’ – NRC Handelsblad

`Een ongelooflijk rijk, mooi en gewaagd boek.’ – De Groene Amsterdammer

`Een buitengewoon indrukwekkende prestatie.’ – Trouw

`An extraordinarily ambitious undertaking… What Bod has written is not just a “new’’ history. It is the first-ever history of its kind.’ – The Times Literary Supplement

The Undoing Project

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A Friendship that Changed the World

Michael Lewis | 2017, W.W. Norton & Company

This is the extraordinary story of the two men whose ideas changed the world. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky met in war-torn 1960s Israel. Both were gifted young psychology professors: Kahneman, a rootless son of Holocaust survivors who saw the world as a problem to be solved, and Tversky, a voluble, instinctual blur of energy.

In this breathtaking new book, Michael Lewis tells the extraordinary story of a relationship that became a shared mind: one which created the field of behavioural economics, revolutionising everything from Big Data to medicine, from how we are governed to how we spend, from high finance to football.

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Sources of Power

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How People Make Decisions

Gary Klein | 1999, MIT Press

Anyone who watches the television news has seen images of firefighters rescuing people from burning buildings and paramedics treating bombing victims. How do these individuals make the split-second decisions that save lives? Most studies of decision-making based on artificial tasks assigned in laboratory settings view people as biased and unskilled.

Gary Klein is one of the developers of the naturalistic decision-making approach, which views people as inherently skilled and experienced. It documents human strengths and capabilities that have been downplayed or ignored so far.

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PreMortem

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Method of Risk Assessment

Gary Klein | December 2007 (by Jack Kruf)

According to Klein (2007), “Projects fail at a spectacular rate. One reason is that too many people are reluctant to speak up about their reservations during the all-important planning phase. By making it safe for dissenters who are knowledgeable about the undertaking and worried about its weaknesses to speak up, you can improve a project’s chances of success.”

The Harvard Business Review article: “In a premortem, team members assume that the project they are planning has just failed—as so many do—and then generate plausible reasons for its demise. Those with reservations may speak freely at the outset, so that the project can be improved rather than autopsied.”

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Risk and Reason

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Safety, Law, and the Environment

Cas R. Sunstein | April 2002, Cambridge University Press

Risk and Reason presents a sensible system for reducing risks to save lives and money. What should be done about aeroplane safety and terrorism, global warming, polluted water, nuclear power, and genetically engineered food? Risks to safety, health, and the environment are a subject of intense interest worldwide. Too often, we fear the wrong things.

Sometimes we make the situation even worse. Rather than investigating the facts, we respond to temporary fears. The result is a situation of hysteria and neglect – and unnecessary illness and death.

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The Politics of Policymaking

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In Introduction

Arjen Boin and Martin Lodge | April 2024, Sage Publications

Never has good policy been so important. The challenges we face are complex and global, from unemployment and a lack of affordable housing to regulating cryptocurrencies and protecting against cybersecurity threats. The text explains how policymaking works, using examples from around the world, from the emergence of policy ideas to deciding between cutting-edge solutions, from evaluating policies to improving policymaking practices.

Open up the black box of government to see where policies are made. This introductory text takes you beyond theory and into the messy world of policymaking, offering a toolkit for making better policy. Drawing from insights earned through years of interactions with policymakers and extensive teaching experience, Boin and Lodge offer a comprehensive introduction to the inner workings of government and how to produce policies that address societal problems of today and tomorrow.

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