Iatrogenics
Ятрогения · Ятрогенный вред · Iatrogenic harm
Harm caused by the intervention itself. Treatment that's worse than the disease.
The cost of intervention is often invisible because the intervention came with an explanation. The classic in medicine: surgery that kills 10% to fix a problem that resolves itself in 95% of cases. Same pattern in management (the reorg that destroys velocity), parenting (the policing that breaks trust), policy (the regulation that creates the problem it tries to solve).
Inaction has invisible benefits and intervention has invisible costs. Most «do something» reflexes are net-negative when the costs are counted.
An anxious manager rewrites a successful team's process. Performance drops. The new process is blamed on «execution». The actual cause was the intervention.
- 1Before any intervention, ask: «what's the base rate of this problem resolving without intervention?»
- 2Demand a clear hypothesis for HOW the intervention helps, with a falsifier.
This part of the knowledge base is inspired by the book. Go to the Ukrainian edition to explore the concept in depth.
- · Меточка по Талебу - iatrogenics