Wall Street Journal Bestseller New York Times bestselling author Dan Heath explores how to prevent Problems Before They happen, drawing on insights from hundreds of interviews with unconventional problem solvers.
How many Problems in our lives and in society are we tolerating simply because we\'ve forgotten that we can fix them?.
Upstream delivers practical solutions for preventing Problems rather than reacting to them.
And one EMS system accelerated the emergency-response time of its ambulances by using data to predict where 911 calls would emerge--and forward-deploying its ambulances to stand by in those areas.
A European nation almost eliminated teenage alcohol and drug abuse by deliberately changing the nation\'s culture.
A major urban school district cut its dropout rate in half after it figured out that it could predict which students would drop out--as early as the ninth grade.
One online travel website prevented twenty million customer service calls every year by making some simple tweaks to its booking system.
And Heath introduces us to the thinkers who have overcome these obstacles and scored massive victories by switching to an upstream mindset.
So why do our efforts skew so heavily toward reaction rather than prevention? Upstream probes the psychological forces that push us downstream--including problem blindness, which can leave us oblivious to serious Problems in our midst.
But many crimes, chronic illnesses, and customer complaints are preventable.
Cops chase robbers, doctors treat patients with chronic illnesses, and call-center reps address customer complaints.
We stay downstream, handling one problem after another, but we never make our way upstream to fix the systems that caused the problems.
We deal with emergencies.
We put out fires.
So often in life, we get stuck in a cycle of response.
Wall Street Journal Bestseller New York Times bestselling author Dan Heath explores how to prevent Problems Before They happen, drawing on insights from hundreds of interviews with unconventional problem solvers
