On a mission to fight devastating ignorance
The late Hans Rosling, the author of this book, was a very passionate, engaging and talented Swedish statistician who to this day (through the legacy of his work) is still ‘fighting devastating ignorance’ by bringing data to life.
In Factfulness, Rosling strives to show how important an understanding of information and statistics is whilst at the same time laying bare the sheer number of high-level decisions that are made based on preconceptions and ignorance. He demonstrates in a non-judgemental way that not only do we not know very much* but also don’t really know how to interpret the data we do come across.
(*If you are at all dubious about that, do take the gapminder test!)
People constantly and intuitively refer to their worldview when thinking, guessing or learning. If your worldview is wrong, you will systematically make the wrong guesses.
Hans Rosling
In reading this book, your world view will be challenged by a series of major questions about the things you think you have an idea of – the ten instincts that keep us from seeing the world factfully.
A challenge that Bill Gates deemed so important that he decided to make this book available to all college graduates for free in 2018.
One of the most important books ever written about Insight
The IMA believes it is one of the most important books ever written about Insight, because Insight leaders across all sectors in the UK, Europe and North America regularly report that their main challenge is not that senior decision-makers do not know particular facts or figures; it's rather that senior executives tend to have constructed their whole corporate worldview without sufficient focus on the fundamental truths of how and why customers do business with the company.
If you are seeking to develop an Insight perspective for your organisation, Rosling's framwork will indeed help you to fight the endemic 'devastating ignorance'.
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