I like Gary Klein’s work because it tries to understand the simple problem of how individuals in difficult situations make good decisions. There is no time for optimization or decision trees. There is no time for carefully reasoning through all scenarios with what-if analysis. Decisions have to be made, and made quickly. This is the life of a trader, a fireman, or a military officer.
The simple graph above is the focus of this book. Everyone wants performance improvement, and there are two ways to get it. You can decrease errors or increase insights. Most work on decision-making focuses on decreasing errors. Less work and research focus on how to increase insights, which is where Gary has focused his attention.
The emphasis in decision-making is less on mechanistic forms of error reduction and more on finding insights. Klein provides some very good examples, stories, and theories, but forming better insights is not easy. He focuses on some basics that can provide insights. What underlying assumptions are used to make the decision? Faulty assumptions will lead to poor conclusions. A variation of “garbage in, garbage out.” Just as important is understanding the knowledge used in a decision, the beliefs that form its foundation, the decision-maker’s priorities, and the constants associated with it. We cannot be mind-readers.
We have to make connections. We have to see contradictions in our views and discard flawed beliefs. Klein believes that we can gain insights through practice and experience. A framework can help with this process. We have to work our insight muscles.
The emphasis in decision-making is less on mechanistic forms of error reduction and more on finding insights. Klein provides some very good examples, stories, and theories, but forming better insights is not easy. He focuses on some basics that can provide insights. What underlying assumptions are used to make the decision? Faulty assumptions will lead to poor conclusions. A variation of “garbage in, garbage out.” Just as important is understanding the knowledge used in a decision, the beliefs that form its foundation, the decision-maker’s priorities, and the constants associated with it. We cannot be mind-readers.
We have to make connections. We have to see contradictions in our views and discard flawed beliefs. Klein believes that we can gain insights through practice and experience. A framework can help with this process. We have to work our insight muscles.
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