Upstream
The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen
1st Edition
Published on 3. March 2020
320 pages
978-1-9821-3474-7 (ISBN)
Description
Wall Street Journal Bestseller
New York Times bestselling author Dan Heath explores how to prevent problems before they happen, drawing on insights from hundreds of interviews with unconventional problem solvers and showing how leaders, teams, and organizations can shift from reaction to prevention.
So often in life, we get stuck in a cycle of response. We put out fires. We deal with emergencies. We stay downstream, handling one problem after another, but we never make our way upstream to fix the systems that caused the problems. Cops chase robbers, doctors treat patients with chronic illnesses, and call-center reps address customer complaints. But many crimes, chronic illnesses, and customer complaints are preventable. So why do our efforts skew so heavily toward reaction rather than prevention?
Upstream probes the psychological forces that push us downstream?including "problem blindness," which can leave us oblivious to serious problems in our midst. And Heath introduces us to the thinkers who have overcome these obstacles and scored massive victories by switching to an upstream mindset. One online travel website prevented twenty million customer service calls every year by making some simple tweaks to its booking system. A major urban school district cut its dropout rate in half after it figured out that it could predict which students would drop out?as early as the ninth grade. A European nation almost eliminated teenage alcohol and drug abuse by deliberately changing the nation's culture. And one EMS system accelerated the emergency-response time of its ambulances by using data to predict where 911 calls would emerge?and forward-deploying its ambulances to stand by in those areas.
Upstream delivers practical solutions for problem prevention, systems change, and better decision-making rather than reacting to them. How many problems in our lives and in society are we tolerating simply because we've forgotten that we can fix them?
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Book
03/2020
Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
€30.50
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Person
Dan Heath is the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor/author of six books, including Made to Stick, Switch, and The Power of Moments. His books have sold over four million copies worldwide and been translated into thirty-five languages. Dan also hosts the award-winning podcast What It's Like to Be…, which explores what it's like to walk in the shoes of people from different professions (a mystery novelist, a cattle rancher, a forensic accountant, and more). A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard Business School, he lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Note from Author on Sourcing
- Chapter 1: Moving Upstream
- Section 1: The Three Barriers to Upstream Thinking
- Chapter 2: Problem Blindness
- Chapter 3: A Lack of Ownership
- Chapter 4: Tunneling
- Section 2: Seven Questions for Upstream Leaders
- Chapter 5: How Will You Unite the Right People?
- Chapter 6: How Will You Change the System?
- Chapter 7: Where Can You Find a Point of Leverage?
- Chapter 8: How Will You Get Early Warning of the Problem?
- Chapter 9: How Will You Know You're Succeeding?
- Chapter 10: How Will You Avoid Doing Harm?
- Chapter 11: Who Will Pay for What Does Not Happen?
- Section 3: Far Upstream
- Chapter 12: The Chicken Little Problem: Distant and Improbable Threats
- Chapter 13: You, Upstream
- Next Steps
- Overview
- Appendix 1: Scaling Programs in the Social Sector
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Notes
- Index
- Copyright
