Unexpected "shocks" to the normal way of doing things can often help spark the creativity needed to accomplish something truly amazing. Messy opens with the story of a jazz pianist that was going to walk away from a performance due to the poor condition of the piano. However, as a special favor to the promoter, the pianist performed and produced one of the top performances of all time. The condition of the piano forced the pianist to improvise and go out of the "comfort zone" and produce something great.Attempts to be fully objective often produce bias in how the "objective" criteria are created. External factors have a habit of rearing their ugly head. APGAR scores for new borns lead to more c sections. Diversity produces benefits when there are true differences. Cities that section every thing off in neat areas not only produce great amounts of traffic, they eliminate many chances of spontaneity that can lead lead to positive growth. Providing too much protection from failure reduces the chances of small problems, but increases the odds that a problem will be catastrophic. (The book gives the example of the Air France jet that crashed over the ocean. The pilots were accustomed to auto-pilot, and had difficulty responding to abnormal conditions. Standardization and protection can lead to us keeping the "same old bad".
Startups help to inject new messiness into the system. Amazon did stupid stuff early on. They would even go out and buy toys at retail, losing money on the transaction to get it to the customer. That messiness allowed them to succeed.
People adapt to meet criteria, even if that hurts the big picture. (For example medical appointments in 2 days mean none available in advance. Surgeon ratings on outcomes lead to more unnecessary surgery. Actually results show little difference in surgeon compared to entry condition of patients.) Being able to rely on some messiness can help the big picture to be better - even if there are parts that are not so great.
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