Simple techniques can produce huge results. But more often than not, simple techniques are easy to explain but hard to put into practice efficiently. A checklist is definitely one of these techniques.

The book follows the reflection of a surgeon on using checklists like aviation pilots use them. The book follows how the idea grew inside the author’s mind, which means the pace of the book is sometimes slow. For sure, you can easily sum up the book in a few pages but getting into details contributes a lot in appreciating the subtleties of using a checklist that really works in practice. (The number of complications after surgery dropped nearly by half everywhere such a “simple” technique was applied!)

As a surgeon, the author focuses on using checklists in the operation room but the reflection will help you apply the knowledge in other domains where teamwork and preventing errors is essential. As brilliantly illustrated through real-world use cases, checklists are cheap but surprisingly effective. Checklists will make your team more efficient without necessarily being more skillful.