Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
We spend most of our time reacting to problems instead of preventing them — and it’s costing us. In this episode of Stacking Knowledge, Mickey Mellen unpacks key lessons from Dan Heath’s brilliant book Upstream, which explores why we’re wired to focus on what’s visible and urgent instead of what’s preventable.
From real-world examples like Expedia’s call center missteps to hospital “towel crises,” you’ll learn why upstream thinking is so hard — and how to overcome the three biggest barriers:
✅ Problem Blindness – failing to see solvable problems
✅ Lack of Ownership – when no one’s responsible for prevention
✅ Tunneling – getting stuck in short-term reactive mode
We’ll also dig into:
- Why Goodhart’s Law ruins well-intentioned metrics
- The “prophet’s dilemma” of success you can’t prove
- How self-driving cars, vaccines, and even parking spots teach us about unseen impact
If you’re ready to shift from firefighting to future-proofing — in business, leadership, or life — this episode will change how you see problems forever.
We spend most of our time reacting to problems instead of preventing them — and it’s costing us. In this episode of Stacking Knowledge, Mickey Mellen unpacks key lessons from Dan Heath’s brilliant book Upstream, which explores why we’re wired to focus on what’s visible and urgent instead of what’s preventable.
From real-world examples like Expedia’s call center missteps to hospital “towel crises,” you’ll learn why upstream thinking is so hard — and how to overcome the three biggest barriers:
✅ Problem Blindness – failing to see solvable problems
✅ Lack of Ownership – when no one’s responsible for prevention
✅ Tunneling – getting stuck in short-term reactive mode
We’ll also dig into:
- Why Goodhart’s Law ruins well-intentioned metrics
- The “prophet’s dilemma” of success you can’t prove
- How self-driving cars, vaccines, and even parking spots teach us about unseen impact
If you’re ready to shift from firefighting to future-proofing — in business, leadership, or life — this episode will change how you see problems forever.
