Under conditions of increasing complexity, in medicine and elsewhere, experts require a different set of values than we’ve had. We require greater humility about our abilities, greater self-discipline and the prizing of teamwork over individual prowess. And those are precisely the values contained in the willingness to design and use checklists for what we do.
That's from America's new guru, Atul Gawande, responding to a review of his new book in the New York Times. He's right, of course -- particularly the bit about humility, self-discipline, and teamwork. It all sounds so out-of-date. But what we've been learning about ourselves during the current recession and more than a couple of decades of sourness and anger tells us that our narcissism is not only unpleasant to live with but massively unproductive.
