Neil Swidey was at a neighborhood birthday party seven years ago when a lawyer friend told him about an unusual lawsuit. The litigation stemmed from a 1999 accident in which commercial divers had been sent on a risky mission to unplug a 10-mile unlit tunnel deep beneath Boston Harbor — a key step in the cleanup of the once-filthy waterway. Swidey, a reporter at The Boston Globe Magazine, had never heard of the incident, partly because it was subsumed by media coverage of John F. Kennedy Jr.’s fatal plane crash, which took place around the same time. In 2009 Swidey wrote a two-part story in the Globe Magazine reconstructing the accident, but afterward he remained interested in the larger questions raised by the incident — specifically in how organizations manage risky projects, and how decisions can go tragically wrong. “If you look around at all the infrastructure that makes modern life possible — the tunnels and towers — that’s all done on the backs of blue collar workers who assume the lion’s share of the risks,” Swidey says. His book on the Harbor Tunnel disaster, “Trapped Under the Sea,” comes out in February. He spoke with HBR about the broader genre of “disaster lit” and what it teaches about decision-making.
Learning from Bad Decisions in “Disaster Lit”
Author Neil Swidey reflects on managing risky projects to prevent tragedy.
November 04, 2013
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Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Decision Making. Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.
Practical ways to improve your decision-making process.