This document summarizes and reviews the book "Messy" by Tim Harford. It discusses how embracing disorder and messiness can help unleaders unleash creativity in individuals and teams. It provides summaries for each chapter that discuss concepts like creating an environment that encourages innovation, the power of unplanned communication, and relying on human intellect over algorithms to solve problems. The reviewer believes healthcare could benefit from embracing some of these messy concepts to help physicians think more analogically and compromise between algorithms and human judgment to improve outcomes and reduce burnout.

1. The 5 Minute Book Review
Who should read this book?
&
Why should YOU read this book?
Ramesh Kumar, MD
Physician Executive Coach
My Mission: Helping the Medical Care System Deliver Timely and
Appropriate Care for our Patients.

2. Book of the Week: “Messy” by Tim Harford
Who should read this book?
Leaders who believe in beating the competition and winning. It
explains on how to capitalize a messy and uncertain situation and stack
the odds in your favor..EVERYTIME!
The sub-title of the book is : “ The power of Disorder to Transform our
lives”, which dilutes out the real message which is: Playing the game to
WIN. The concepts discussed turns conventional wisdom on its head
when it comes to winning.

3. Chapter 1:
• Official Title is: “Creativity”.
• My title is: “How to Unleash your Mind”. A Leader nurtures Creative
solutions in Individuals by placing them in situations that are
organically stressful.
• The story: Jazz musician, Keith Jarrett produces a masterpiece by
being forced to improvise on a beaten up Piano.

4. Chapter 2
• Official Title is: “Collaboration”.
• My title is: “How a Leader forms powerful teams that work together”.
Strangers in teams. North-star to bring Tribes together.
• Story: Designing a computer game, so many different teams all
working together. Different tribes come together for a common cause
and forget their inter-tribal warfare. Strangers within each tribe brings
out the best in the tribe by introducing a bit of messiness.

5. Chapter 3
• Official Title: “Workplaces”
• My Title: “The Messy Campus Concept” The Leader creates an
environment that is “messy” to encourage innovation and creativity.
• Story: The original Building 20 on the MIT campus: Messy, ugly and
uncomfortable created a hot bed of incredible innovation. Random
mix of people, easy to plug and play, inexpensive to change
infrastructure. People could change anything within the building to
suit their needs. They were in charge and controlled their own space.

6. Chapter 4
• Official Title: “Improvisation”
• My Title: “How a Leader Talks”. Powerful Communication occurs when
it is unplanned, unrehearsed and looks messy instead of the
consciously scripted version.
• Story; The “I have a dream” speech. Donald Trump’s win.

7. Chapter 5
• Official Title: “Winning”
• My Title: “A smart Leader’s Actions that are so messy and
unpredictable that it confuses the enemy more than it does the
Leader and his team”. The smart Leader must be smart enough to see
the break and the opportunity and risk taking it to win.
• Story: Field Marshall Erwin Rommel won over the allies consistently in
WW II.

8. Chapter 6
• Official Title: “Incentives”
• My Title: How a Leader inadvertently “incentivizes” cheating and Lying by
using the wrong measurement of results and how redefining the goals by
carefully chosen words can change for the positive.
• Story: NHS directive to ambulances to keep their response time to within 8
minutes for emergencies. They get great results but the patients are
harmed because the paramedics found work-arounds to look good without
regard to the meaningful outcomes that it was meant to measure.

9. Chapter 7
• Title: “Automation”
• My Title: How a Leader relying on Algorithms and Machines lead to
Disasters. Neat and clean (non-messy) Algorithmic actions lead to
disasters.
• Story: Air France Flt 447 from Brazil to Paris, stalls and crashes on
auto-pilot when the Pilots were not trained to respond. Allow
humans to be messy and think on their feet to come up with
solutions. Catastrophes need human intellect for solutions.

10. Chapter 8
• Title “Resilience”
• My Title: The Leader wins by challenging conventional belief systems.
Challenging induces the body’s “immune system” to prepare for it
and handle it effectively at the time of need.
• Story: Gut bacteria and antibiotics. Destroy the Gut bacteria and
induce catastrophic illness such as C. Diff infections.

11. Chapter 9
• Title: ”Life”
• My Title: The Leader who believes that life is messy, uncertain and
Fun! Life is NOT alogrithmic and it is NOT placed in neat little files and
folders
• Story: Schwarzenegger not a planner, messy inbox, messy desk,
important things get addressed.

12. My Final Thoughts
• Awareness that patients are “Messy” and Analogic.
• Effective patient care needs a compromise of physicians thinking
Algorithmically and Analogically.
• Current Healthcare Systems force Physicians to think Algorithmically
exclusively. The results are more burnout among Physicians and
worsening outcomes.
• My Mission: Helping the Medical Care System deliver Timely and
Appropriate Care for our Patients.