Seeing What Others Don't: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights

Experimental cognitive psychologist Klein (Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions) takes his experience in academia, the military, and private industry and offers seminars on improving employee performance, defining improvement as a combination of fewer mistakes and more insightful decisions. Here he examines stories of unusual discoveries and develops a model of "discovery triggers"—the actions innovators took as a result of their insight and the changes in understanding that they produced. He likewise investigates personal insight failures through "insight twin" stories, in which another person was presented with similar information but failed to reach the same conclusion. Decision support systems and organizational failures also come under fire for stifling creative thought and putting too much emphasis on reducing mistakes. Final chapters recommend changes to personal and organizational behavior to benefit all readers.