The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande - Loy Machedo’s Book Review

From the desk of Loy Machedo: The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande – A book review.

The challenge while purchasing a book is that
you have no idea if a book is going to be good or not.
you also have authors & writers who support each other in giving each other a positive review – which may not be true.
The best selling author’s current book may not be as good as his previous landmark selling book
The halo effect – the author has such a strong reputation that whatever he says – people buy into it – but it may not be that great

The Checklist Manifesto sadly falls into the category where the message is great however the content of the book is not.

*****************************************

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande – Loy Machedo’s Book Review

About the author
Atul Gawande as per Wikipedia is an American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Samuel O. Thier Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. In public health, he is executive director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit that works on reducing deaths in surgery globally.

Analysis of his book

The whole book is about using a checklist. And the examples provided to support the concept is taken primarily from the Aviation & medical professional.

In fact, the entire premise of ‘The Checklist Manifesto’ is:

There was a problem
Then there was a disaster
They found the reason for the disaster was they didn’t have a checklist
They created a checklist
Now when there was a problem
They referred a check list
They were able to save lives thanks to the checklist

What I didn’t like about ‘The Checklist Manifesto’:

Incredibly repetitive, long-winded and boring.
The whole book could have been edited down to 10 pages.
90% of the book is describing the Operation theatre scene
What the author could have done to make the book better

Teach his readers/audience how to create checklists

Show different examples of checklists – he has only shared 2
Give more examples from different fields where they have used checklists
Give more tips, do’s & don’ts of check lists

Loy Machedo’s Moment of Truth for The Checklist Manifesto
Even though I listened to the book via Audio, I couldn’t bear to listen to it for more than 15 mins at a stretch. Absolutely terrible. The only thing worthwhile knowing was – you need a checklist with what to do. Thats the only take away I got from the book.

Loy Machedo’s Final Rating for The Checklist Manifesto
The message – 8/10
The book – 2/10

********************************

If you wish to get in touch with me
loy@loymachedo.com