Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions

Gary Klein is Senior Scientist at MacroCognition LLC. Hoffman), and Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making, the last two published by the MIT Press. . He is the author of The Power of Intuition, Seeing What Others Don't, Working Minds: A Practitioner's Guide

There's intuition, which is based not on instantaneous insight but on the rapid (perhaps even subconscious) interpretation of perceptual cues. From this research, he and his associates have developed a theory of "naturalistic decision-making."Sources of Power essentially lends the validity of scientific research to techniques that many of us use every day. There's mental simulation, a finely honed method of visualization. Gary Klein studies decision-making in the field, tagging along with firefighters, standing by in intensive-care units, and watching chess masters play lightning-fast "blitz" games to learn how people make choices with time constraints, limited informat

Gary Klein is one of the developers of the naturalistic decision making approach, which views people as inherently skilled and experienced. In addition to providing information that can be used by professionals in management, psychology, engineering, and other fields, the book presents an overview of the research approach of naturalistic decision making and expands our knowledge of the strengths people bring to difficult tasks.. It documents human strengths and capabilities that so far have been downplayed or ignored.Since 1985, Klein has conducted fieldwork to find out how people tackle challenges in difficult, nonroutine situations. Sources of Power is based on observations of humans acting under such real-life constraints as time pressure, high stakes, personal responsibility, and shifting conditions. The professionals studied include firefighters, critical care nurses, pilots, nuclear power plant operators, battle planners, and chess masters. Anyone who watches the television news has seen images o

His Decisions Are Out There Gary Klein is a cognitive psychologist who has "gone native," shifting his focus from the laboratory to the messy world of firefighters, tank commanders, and other naturalistic decision makers. Their work environments are defined by "time pressure, high stakes, experienced decision makers, inadequate information, ill-defined goals, poorly defined procedures, cue learning, context, dynamic conditions, and team coordination." Instead of cataloging their errors, Klein has identified the mental capabilities that help them succeed. His book presents these "sources of power" for our consideration.These sour. "Whether intentionally or not, Klein rebukes the attitude of" according to B. Taylor. Whether intentionally or not, Klein rebukes the attitude of indifference (and sometimes outright disdain) that some organizations, and perhaps society at large, exhibit with respect to experience in the work force. This extends even to the practice of deliberately shedding experienced people (on the grounds that they become "too costly"), replacing experts with "cheaper" novices who, in their turn, will be replaced by novices at just about the same time that they become worth what they're paid.. Want to know how people make decisions? Try this view out. This is an insightful book, exploring how we make decisions. Remember the old Ben Franklin approach? Two columns on a piece of paper: One column is headed reasons to decide yes and the other why we would not make the decision. Whichever side has the most entries determines our decision. Others argue that humans use a rational calculus to make decisions. What are the costs and benefits of any decision?There are any number of perspectives on how humans make decisions--rational choice theory, heuristics and biases, the evolutionary toolbox, incrementalism, and on and on. This book adopts something like a