"IT veteran Dave Zweiback describes an incident that threatens the very existence of a large financial institution, and the counterintuitive steps its leadership took to stop the downward spiral. Their novel approach is grounded in proven concepts from complexity science, resilience engineering, human factors, cognitive science, and organizational psychology. It allows us to identify the underlying conditions for failure, and make our systems (and organizations) safer and more resilient."--Page 4 of cover

Through an examination of thirty-five major inquiries into child sexual abuse, the authors identify common themes with important implications for professional practice.

The inspiring new book from the author of Emotional Bullshit reveals why no one is to blame-but everyone's accountable. For many, a rare day goes by in which the need to blame does not arise-be it to cover one's own errors or just to assign an unfortunate event some kind of name (i.e., "If only X hadn't said X, we wouldn't be in this mess.") And even for those who are somewhat better at keeping the impulse in check-it is still there. According to psychologist Carl Alasko, blame is such an intrinsic part of how we humans communicate that we rarely take a look at what we're actually doing-and how it can affect our relationships. In this book, Alasko reveals that the need to assign blame when something bad happens stems from a very deep desire we all share to "see justice done". Understandable when a grave crime has been committed, but it can become a dangerous habit if we begin to operate as though placing blame were somehow necessary if we want to change something or someone in our world. Yet this feeling that "someone has to pay" is seldom productive in initiating positive change. In Beyond Blame, Alasko teaches readers to recognize destruction that blame causes in their lives-oftentimes without their even being aware-and to put an end to it once and for all. The path to eliminating blame is not a quick or easy one but, as Carl Alasko demonstrates, it is a road that must be traveled if we hope to achieve true peace in our lives.

Failure is inevitable and a postmortem analysis, conducted in an open, blameless way, is the best way for IT techs and managers to learn from outages and near-misses. But when the "root cause" is determined to be "human error" (or worse, particular humans), the real causes and conditions are lost. In this insightful book, IT veteran Dave Zwieback shows you an approach for making postmortems blameless, so you can focus instead on addressing areas of fragility within systems and organizations. If you’re involved with assessing why something goes wrong on a project or at your company—as a system administrator, developer, team manager, or executive—the concrete steps in this guide will help you find a real solution that works. Recognize and mitigate the effects of stress during outages Learn how to communicate effectively in a charged, high-stakes postmortem conversation Collect the necessary data before the postmortem begins Focus on determining the actual causes and conditions of an outage Learn techniques for writing up a postmortem for either internal or external use

What can we learn from inquiries into cases of fatal child abuse? Beyond Blame offers a new way of looking at such cases and shows that it is possible to draw important lessons from them. The authors, all three experienced in child protection work, summarise thirty-five major inquiries since 1973, setting them in their social context and discussing the implications both for practical work in the field and for future inquiries. They stress the need for those who work day to day in child protection to develop and apply a more sophisticated level of analysis to assessment and intervention. They identify common themes within abusing families, in the relationships between members of the professional networks, and in the interactions between the families and the professionals.

Armstrong Williams, a nationally-syndicated radio and television host, sets a higher standard for himself. Through his shows, and in his personal life as well, Armstrong lives his own rhetoric of individual empowerment, hard work, faith, and social responsibility.

Wrestling with the question, Is God to blame?, Gregory A. Boyd offers a hopeful picture of a sovereign God who is relentlessly opposed to evil, who knows our sufferings and who can be trusted to bring us through them to renewed life.