The 1918 Pandemic killed over 50 million worldwide. Another pandemic was inevitable, yet how many people and organizations prepared for it? Why don't we learn from history? This series is about disasters and how to avoid them, mitigate their effects and learn from them. As you will see studying seven significant events in each book, they didn't just happen, and the people and organizations involved weren't helpless victims. Taking the attitude shit happens is potentially fatal. It ignores painful and tragic lessons from the past. If we're going to make the deaths and suffering of victims to mean anything, we must learn from them. That is the "gift of failure."
The bottom line is we can predict and prevent many disasters because every disaster involving human interaction has a man-made factor, a cascade event, involved. In other words, we have control over whether shit happens. But it means changing a complacent mindset, getting rid of delusional thinking, and viewing the world around us in a different way. This book not only dissects these seven disasters, it outlines ways for individuals and organizations to avoid future disasters.
Titanic: Systematic Failure
Little Big Horn: Leadership Failure
The Donner Party: Social Disintegration
New London Schoolhouse Explosion: Lack of Focus
The Housing Bubble: Greed Overwhelms Reality
The Kegworth Plane Crash: Trusting Experts
Apollo 13: Successful Failure