Book Review: The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande published by Profile Books 2010
This was our Fabulous Networking Book Club read in October 2023. It got mixed reviews from our readers. One described it as ‘awful’, others were less disparaging but nobody loved it.
Most of us found it an easy read although some skim read as they found parts repetitive. Gawande uses stories to illustrate his points which turned what could have been a tedious subject into something more readable. Some of the stories were a continuous thread throughout the book which I liked but not everyone did. However most examples were from medicine (the author’s own field) and aviation where checklists are well known.
We would have preferred a wider scope of examples and including from the service industries. Most of the examples were from sectors where a serious failure could be a life or death matter. Does that mean that checklists are not important in other sectors? I think not.
The thing we really wanted from this book was a summary chapter with a bit more guidance on the how to devise a checklist for our own organisations. A checklist for the checklist would have been ideal. We understand that a generic checklist would not work but something that talked about who to involve, key things to think about and testing before full roll out would have been helpful. As a book club we do love summaries and action points to help us action our learning… budding authors please note!
My key takeaways…
- checklists can be really valuable in routine, even mundane, procedures when we can become a bit blasé and may miss a vital step
- checklists can empower junior members of a team to speak up and challenge more senior members of the team
- a checklist doesn’t need to include everything but should cover critical steps.
- a checklist which has too many steps won’t be used… consider breaking the process down and having smaller checklist for each element
Would I recommend this book?
Not unreservedly especially having had the feedback from Book Club members. I found it an easy read but unusually I didn’t take notes or highlight relevant ideas. It could be useful to people whose work impacts on the safety and wellbeing of themselves and others. It would also be useful to leaders who want or need to develop team working. That means it could be a good recommendation at an appraisal discussion when someone in a senior role needs to see a challenge from a more junior member of the team as constructive not threatening.
