Iatrogenics
Harm done by the would-be healer that exceeds the benefit.
From Greek for "caused by the healer." Originally a medical term: harm caused by medical treatment itself. Taleb extends it to interventions in any system where the cure is worse than the disease.
The costs are hidden because they're delayed and distributed, while the apparent benefit is immediate and visible. Aggressive treatments often produce side effects later that exceed the value of the immediate treatment. Aggressive management often produces team damage that exceeds the value of the immediate management win.
For operators, the discipline is to consider iatrogenics on every intervention. The hidden cost of the cure. The delayed harm. The downstream consequences. The naive interventionist (see [naive-interventionism]) misses these and stacks up iatrogenic damage over time.
Examples in the wild
Reorganisations are often iatrogenic. The immediate visible benefit (cleaner org chart, theoretical efficiency) is offset by delayed costs (relationship damage, lost institutional memory, employee turnover) that exceed the gain.
Active portfolio management is often iatrogenic. The visible benefit (you're doing something) is offset by tax drag, fees, and bad timing that drag long-run returns below passive.
Many medical procedures done on low-risk patients are net iatrogenic. The chance of an undetected serious condition is small; the chance of treatment complications often isn't.
Iatrogenics is one of the mental models we apply through real cases inside the Pareto MBA — a part-time program for professionals who want to think clearly about business.