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" In reality, however, she was guilty of a distinctive kind of laziness. By failing to engage with the complexity of the system she managed, she was blaming preemptively and thus undermining openness and learning. She was weakening the most important accountability of all: what the philosopher Virginia Sharpe calls “forward-looking accountability.” This is the accountability to learn from adverse events so that future patients are not harmed by avoidable mistakes. "

Matthew Syed , Black Box Thinking: Why Some People Never Learn from Their Mistakes - But Some Do


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Matthew Syed quote : In reality, however, she was guilty of a distinctive kind of laziness. By failing to engage with the complexity of the system she managed, she was blaming preemptively and thus undermining openness and learning. She was weakening the most important accountability of all: what the philosopher Virginia Sharpe calls “forward-looking accountability.” This is the accountability to learn from adverse events so that future patients are not harmed by avoidable mistakes.