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Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions
Anyone who watches the television news has seen images of firefighters rescuing
people from burning buildings and paramedics treating bombing victims. How do these individuals make
the split-second decisions that save lives? Most studies of decision making, based on artificial
tasks assigned in laboratory settings, view people as biased and unskilled. Gary Klein is one of the
developers of the naturalistic decision making approach, which views people as inherently skilled
and experienced. 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.
Each chapter builds on key incidents and examples to make the description of the methodology and
phenomena more vivid. 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.
480 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 16, 1998
360 people are currently reading
15385 people want to read
About the author
Gary Klein
44 books221 followersGary Klein, Ph.D., is known for the cognitive models, such as the Recognition-Primed Decision (RPD) model, the Data/Frame model of sensemaking, the Management By Discovery model of planning in complex settings, and the Triple Path model of insight, the methods he developed, including techniques for Cognitive Task Analysis, the PreMortem method of risk assessment, and the ShadowBox training approach, and the movement he helped to found in 1989 — Naturalistic Decision Making. The company he started in 1978, Klein Associates, grew to 37 employees by the time he sold it in 2005. He formed his new company, ShadowBox LLC, in 2014 and is the author of five books.
The Lightbulb Moment: Insights are unexpected shifts in the way we understand how something works, and how to make it work better. The talk examines two mysteries. First, where do insights come from? This talk presents a new account of the nature of insights. Second, how can we trigger more insights? This talk describes a strategy for adopting an insight mindset.
The Lightbulb Moment: Insights are unexpected shifts in the way we understand how something works, and how to make it work better. The talk examines two mysteries. First, where do insights come from? This talk presents a new account of the nature of insights. Second, how can we trigger more insights? This talk describes a strategy for adopting an insight mindset.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 112 reviews
November 3, 2014
BOOK REVIEW: Finally finished reading "Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions" (1999) by Gary A. Klein. Firstly, what made me read this book was that it is referred by Daniel Kahneman in his book "Thinking, Fast and Slow".
This book is very different from other psychology books because, while most of them are based on cognitive psychology and scientifically tested in controlled labs, Klein is against all that and the contents are based on applied psychology and empirically observed in real-life settings (in particular, firefighting, military, nursing and chess games) and he even highlights the shortcomings of his extensive research. This is perhaps THE book to turn to when you want to learn about intuition, mental simulation, experiential learning and imagination.
Shortcomings of the book? The contents can get too dry and detailed with his observations on his focus groups, and sometimes it describes too much of the observations that readers wouldn't know what to make out of it. Plus, it's hard to visualize his descriptions for a number of parts.
This book is very different from other psychology books because, while most of them are based on cognitive psychology and scientifically tested in controlled labs, Klein is against all that and the contents are based on applied psychology and empirically observed in real-life settings (in particular, firefighting, military, nursing and chess games) and he even highlights the shortcomings of his extensive research. This is perhaps THE book to turn to when you want to learn about intuition, mental simulation, experiential learning and imagination.
Shortcomings of the book? The contents can get too dry and detailed with his observations on his focus groups, and sometimes it describes too much of the observations that readers wouldn't know what to make out of it. Plus, it's hard to visualize his descriptions for a number of parts.
July 13, 2020
Gary Klein explains the recognition-primed decision model:
"The commanders’ secret was that their experience let them see a situation, even a non-routine one, as an example of a prototype, so they knew the typical course of action right away. Their experience let them identify a reasonable reaction as the first one they considered, so they did not bother thinking of others. They were not being perverse. They were being skillful. We now call this strategy recognition-primed decision making."
The recognition-primed model explains a lot of real world decision making and a bias toward action: You recognize a situation, iterate through courses of action (without formal analysis) until you hit the first workable option (this means you often don't have to iterate through a lot of options), since you're evaluating options one at a time for workability — you don't compare and contrast the advantages or disadvantages of the alternatives. Once you have the first workable option you identify its weaknesses and avoid them, making it stronger. Then you act.
"The commanders’ secret was that their experience let them see a situation, even a non-routine one, as an example of a prototype, so they knew the typical course of action right away. Their experience let them identify a reasonable reaction as the first one they considered, so they did not bother thinking of others. They were not being perverse. They were being skillful. We now call this strategy recognition-primed decision making."
The recognition-primed model explains a lot of real world decision making and a bias toward action: You recognize a situation, iterate through courses of action (without formal analysis) until you hit the first workable option (this means you often don't have to iterate through a lot of options), since you're evaluating options one at a time for workability — you don't compare and contrast the advantages or disadvantages of the alternatives. Once you have the first workable option you identify its weaknesses and avoid them, making it stronger. Then you act.
August 13, 2009
I'm not really sure how to review this book - imagine you were put in a room and asked 'how do people make decisions' for both crisis situations or planned situations. I would hazard to guess that you would be able to come to the same conclusions much the same way as this book.
Feeling eerily like common sense, this long study (funded by the Dept. of Defense) makes such propositions that experience plays an important role in crisis decisions....etc. etc.
I really learned nothing from this book and I'm not quite sure why it was written. The case studies are the most interesting part - from firefighting to missile attacks (seeing the military aspect here??).
If you think it will shed some light on how your brain works in decision processes - skip it.
Feeling eerily like common sense, this long study (funded by the Dept. of Defense) makes such propositions that experience plays an important role in crisis decisions....etc. etc.
I really learned nothing from this book and I'm not quite sure why it was written. The case studies are the most interesting part - from firefighting to missile attacks (seeing the military aspect here??).
If you think it will shed some light on how your brain works in decision processes - skip it.
May 25, 2015
This is a valuable book on how and why people make decisions. I really liked the book. There are a plethora of stories illustrating decision making processes in a variety of field. Dr. Klein does an excellent job of breaking down these stories and explaining what is really going on. I genuinely feel I have a better understanding of decision making after reading this book. So, why did I give it three stars? The book is too long. Every subsequent chapter builds on the previous chapter, but the value added seems to diminish as you go on.
Worth reading.
Worth reading.
April 1, 2012
This is a book very much along the lines of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell but in my opinion it dives deeper into the understanding of how people actually make decisions. Gladwell's book is certainly very interesting and highly recommended but this book is probably for those that wish to take the next step in their understanding of the decision process.
The book is easy to read and very engaging. It provides real world examples of how good and bad decision were made and the processes behind these. It shows how people that make decisions under extreme stress and time constraints do so based not only on their experiences but by using other techniques to cope with the situation faced. It demonstrates how intuition and simulation play a key role in effective decision making processes and how important non-linear thinking can be.
If you are at all interested in the process of decision making and how experienced people are able to make good decisions under pressure then this book is for you. If you are looking for a deeper treatment of the concepts and examination of decision making, beyond books like Blink, then this certainly is the book for you. It is probably not a book that you can completely digest in on reading. I believe, like most good reference books, it is something that you need to revisit on a regular basis as your experiences grow. It should then start help you filling in the pieces as to the decision making process.
An excellent read and something that should be added to the shelf of anyone looking to understand and make better decisions.
The book is easy to read and very engaging. It provides real world examples of how good and bad decision were made and the processes behind these. It shows how people that make decisions under extreme stress and time constraints do so based not only on their experiences but by using other techniques to cope with the situation faced. It demonstrates how intuition and simulation play a key role in effective decision making processes and how important non-linear thinking can be.
If you are at all interested in the process of decision making and how experienced people are able to make good decisions under pressure then this book is for you. If you are looking for a deeper treatment of the concepts and examination of decision making, beyond books like Blink, then this certainly is the book for you. It is probably not a book that you can completely digest in on reading. I believe, like most good reference books, it is something that you need to revisit on a regular basis as your experiences grow. It should then start help you filling in the pieces as to the decision making process.
An excellent read and something that should be added to the shelf of anyone looking to understand and make better decisions.
February 6, 2016
Sources of Power is the kind of work that should be required reading for anyone who has to deal with people on a daily basis. Since almost all of us deal with people making decisions daily, that means almost all of us should read this book.
Klein explores the various methods we use to make decisions when we have both expert and non-expert knowledge in a particular field. Along the way, he addresses group thinking processes, communicating intent effectively, and other cognitive findings while brilliantly illustrating them with "stories" culled directly from his experience with firefighters, military commanders, and other high-risk professions.
Klein explores the various methods we use to make decisions when we have both expert and non-expert knowledge in a particular field. Along the way, he addresses group thinking processes, communicating intent effectively, and other cognitive findings while brilliantly illustrating them with "stories" culled directly from his experience with firefighters, military commanders, and other high-risk professions.
March 4, 2018
If you like the book Thinking Fast and Slow, this book will show decision making from a completely different context.
Klein does a masterful job of showing how intuition and experience can also be great contexts for decision making.
Klein does a masterful job of showing how intuition and experience can also be great contexts for decision making.
September 30, 2018
Possibly my new favorite book of all time. This is a must-read for anyone interested in professional development. Of particular interest is the concept of “expert learning” that enables the development of intuition. Also, while analytical processes of decision-making have a place in growing leaders, these should be viewed skeptically, especially when touted as the panacea for all decision-making ills. Based on extensive scientific research, Gary Klein has given us a classic that belongs on every leader’s bookshelf.
January 19, 2013
Excellent book. Don't get hung up on the title. Understand the value of experience and trusting your gut.
July 20, 2009
It was a less entertaining but better version of Blink. A look at what the mind does well instead of how it fails to reflect reality.
I liked the idea of how experience increases your level of abstraction and thereby lets you build better mental models.
Same for the idea of balancing goal completion and goal renewal.
That last quote <=> business?
Quotes:
"We have found that people draw on a large set of abilities that are sources of power. The conventional sources of power include deductive logical thinking, analysis of probabilities, and statistical methods. Yet the sources of power that are needed in natural settings are usually not analytical at all - the power of intuition, mental simulation, metaphor, and storytelling. The power of intuition enables us to size up a situation quickly. The power of mental simulation lets us imagine how a course of action might be carried out. The power of metaphor lets us draw on our experience by suggesting parallels between the current situation and something else we have come across. The power of storytelling helps us consolidated our experiences to make them available in the future, either to ourselves or to others. These areas have not been well studied by decision researchers."
"If we had started with the one-option hypothesis and only asked questions to elicit data that would support it, we could have been fooling ourselves. People conducting experiments have a certain power over the people being studied. We refer to this as the demand feature of the experiment. If we made it clear that we wanted data to support the on-option hypothesis, some of the people we interviewed might have given us such data."
"The RPD model claims that with experienced decision makers:
* The focus is on the way they asses the situation and judge it familiar, not on comparing options.
* Courses of action can be quickly evaluated by imagining how the will be carried out, not by formal analysis and comparison.
* Decision makers usually look for the first workable option they can find, not the best option.
* Since the first option they consider is usually workable, they do not have to generate a large set of options to be sure they get a good one.
* They generate and evaluate options one at a time and and not bother comparing the advantages and disadvantages of alternatives.
* By imagining the option being carried out, they can spot weaknesses and find ways to avoid these, thereby making the option stronger. Conventional models just select the best, without seeing how it can be improved.
* The emphasis is on being poised to act rather than being paralyzed until all the evaluations have been completed."
"This is the "parts requirement" for building a mental simulation: a maximum of three moving parts. The design specification is that the mental simulation has to do its job in six steps. Those are the constraints we work under when we construct mental simulations for solving problems and making decisions. We have to assemble the simulation within these constraints. Of course, there are ways of avoiding the constraints. If we have a lot of familiarity in the area, we can chunk several transitions into one unit. In addition, we can save memory space by treating a sequence of steps as one unit rather than representing all the steps. We can use our expertise to find the right level of abstraction."
"Without a sufficient amount of expertise and background knowledge, it may be difficult or impossible to build a mental simulation."
"In the Fogarty report, the account of the Vincennes during the incident sounds like bedlam, with everyone having a different idea of what the track was doing."
"In a relatively short amount of time (ten months), decision researchers with no domain experience were able to elicit information and redesign an interface to produce a large improvement in performance. It would have been very costly to achieve a 15 to 20 percent improvement in performance by developing faster and more powerful computers or providing more weapons director training."
"We also have to be careful not to pursue opportunities too enthusiastically since they might distract us from our more important goals. We have to balance between looking for ways to reach goals and looking for opportunities that will reshape the goals."
"The pretenders have mastered many procedures and tricks of the trade; their actions are smooth. They show many of the characteristics of expertise. However, if they are pushed outside the standard patterns, they cannot improvise. They lack a sense of the dynamics of the situation. They have trouble explaining how the current state of affairs came about and how it will play out. They also have trouble mentally simulating how a different future state from the one they predicted might evolve."
"The most typical perspective is that experts know more; they have more facts and rules at their disposal. In this chapter I have taken a different perspective: expertise is learning how to perceive. The knowledge and rules are incidental."
"Here's what I think we face. Here's what I think we should do. Here's why. Here's what we should keep our eye on. Now, talk to me."
"Lopes points out that examples such as the one using the letter R were carefully chosen. Of the twenty possible consonants, twelve are more common in the first position. Kahneman and Tversky (1973) used the eight that are more common in the third position. They used stimuli only where the availability heuristic would result in a wrong answer. Several studies found that decision biases are reduced if the study includes contextual factors and that the heuristics and biases do not occur in experienced decision makes working in natural settings."
"The discovery of an error is the beginning of the inquiry rather than the end. The real work is to find out the range of factors that resulted in the undesirable outcome."
"In short, our lives are just as governed by superstitions as those of less advanced cultures. The content of the superstitions has changed but not the degree to which they control us. The reason is that for many important aspects of our lives, we cannot pin don the causal relationships. We must act on faith, rumor, and precedent."
"We will not build up real expertise when:
* The domain is dynamic.
* We have to predict human behavior.
* We have less chance for feedback.
* The task does not have enough repetition to build a sense of typicality.
* We have fewer trials."
I liked the idea of how experience increases your level of abstraction and thereby lets you build better mental models.
Same for the idea of balancing goal completion and goal renewal.
That last quote <=> business?
Quotes:
"We have found that people draw on a large set of abilities that are sources of power. The conventional sources of power include deductive logical thinking, analysis of probabilities, and statistical methods. Yet the sources of power that are needed in natural settings are usually not analytical at all - the power of intuition, mental simulation, metaphor, and storytelling. The power of intuition enables us to size up a situation quickly. The power of mental simulation lets us imagine how a course of action might be carried out. The power of metaphor lets us draw on our experience by suggesting parallels between the current situation and something else we have come across. The power of storytelling helps us consolidated our experiences to make them available in the future, either to ourselves or to others. These areas have not been well studied by decision researchers."
"If we had started with the one-option hypothesis and only asked questions to elicit data that would support it, we could have been fooling ourselves. People conducting experiments have a certain power over the people being studied. We refer to this as the demand feature of the experiment. If we made it clear that we wanted data to support the on-option hypothesis, some of the people we interviewed might have given us such data."
"The RPD model claims that with experienced decision makers:
* The focus is on the way they asses the situation and judge it familiar, not on comparing options.
* Courses of action can be quickly evaluated by imagining how the will be carried out, not by formal analysis and comparison.
* Decision makers usually look for the first workable option they can find, not the best option.
* Since the first option they consider is usually workable, they do not have to generate a large set of options to be sure they get a good one.
* They generate and evaluate options one at a time and and not bother comparing the advantages and disadvantages of alternatives.
* By imagining the option being carried out, they can spot weaknesses and find ways to avoid these, thereby making the option stronger. Conventional models just select the best, without seeing how it can be improved.
* The emphasis is on being poised to act rather than being paralyzed until all the evaluations have been completed."
"This is the "parts requirement" for building a mental simulation: a maximum of three moving parts. The design specification is that the mental simulation has to do its job in six steps. Those are the constraints we work under when we construct mental simulations for solving problems and making decisions. We have to assemble the simulation within these constraints. Of course, there are ways of avoiding the constraints. If we have a lot of familiarity in the area, we can chunk several transitions into one unit. In addition, we can save memory space by treating a sequence of steps as one unit rather than representing all the steps. We can use our expertise to find the right level of abstraction."
"Without a sufficient amount of expertise and background knowledge, it may be difficult or impossible to build a mental simulation."
"In the Fogarty report, the account of the Vincennes during the incident sounds like bedlam, with everyone having a different idea of what the track was doing."
"In a relatively short amount of time (ten months), decision researchers with no domain experience were able to elicit information and redesign an interface to produce a large improvement in performance. It would have been very costly to achieve a 15 to 20 percent improvement in performance by developing faster and more powerful computers or providing more weapons director training."
"We also have to be careful not to pursue opportunities too enthusiastically since they might distract us from our more important goals. We have to balance between looking for ways to reach goals and looking for opportunities that will reshape the goals."
"The pretenders have mastered many procedures and tricks of the trade; their actions are smooth. They show many of the characteristics of expertise. However, if they are pushed outside the standard patterns, they cannot improvise. They lack a sense of the dynamics of the situation. They have trouble explaining how the current state of affairs came about and how it will play out. They also have trouble mentally simulating how a different future state from the one they predicted might evolve."
"The most typical perspective is that experts know more; they have more facts and rules at their disposal. In this chapter I have taken a different perspective: expertise is learning how to perceive. The knowledge and rules are incidental."
"Here's what I think we face. Here's what I think we should do. Here's why. Here's what we should keep our eye on. Now, talk to me."
"Lopes points out that examples such as the one using the letter R were carefully chosen. Of the twenty possible consonants, twelve are more common in the first position. Kahneman and Tversky (1973) used the eight that are more common in the third position. They used stimuli only where the availability heuristic would result in a wrong answer. Several studies found that decision biases are reduced if the study includes contextual factors and that the heuristics and biases do not occur in experienced decision makes working in natural settings."
"The discovery of an error is the beginning of the inquiry rather than the end. The real work is to find out the range of factors that resulted in the undesirable outcome."
"In short, our lives are just as governed by superstitions as those of less advanced cultures. The content of the superstitions has changed but not the degree to which they control us. The reason is that for many important aspects of our lives, we cannot pin don the causal relationships. We must act on faith, rumor, and precedent."
"We will not build up real expertise when:
* The domain is dynamic.
* We have to predict human behavior.
* We have less chance for feedback.
* The task does not have enough repetition to build a sense of typicality.
* We have fewer trials."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 26, 2019
Klein provides a window into the power and limitations of experience and intuition in decision making in natural environments. Similar to Kahneman, be ready for some dense academic writing. You may be able to find a good summary online and get the gist of the decision making models he presents in the first 2/3 of the book. At the very least I would read the last few chapters - The Power to Read Minds (mostly on effective communication to improve decision making); The Power is the Team Mind (considerations for effective team decision making); The Power if Rational Analysis and the Problem of Hyperrationality (the challenges that arise when relying too much on analytics; also provides counterpoints to some of Kahnemans work); and Why Good People Make Poor Decisions (how to think about bias, uncertainty, and stress in decision making)
June 8, 2022
Foundational book on understanding making decisions under pressure.
February 28, 2021
Nice that the case studies have nothing to do with business. Refreshing.
March 31, 2015
This is a fascinating book that explores the cognitive processes and methodologies involved in "naturalistic decision making" made by experts. Essentially, this means time- and stress-pressured decisions made by people in high-intensity occupation like tank platoon commanders, pilots, firefighters, neonatal nurses, nuclear facility engineers, and more.
The book, which can occasionally be a little difficult to get through, has beautiful nuggets of information spread throughout that deal with the way we process information and think about decisions. Key takeaways were: the idea that in intense situations, we are almost -never- rationally making decisions, but using recognition to see familiar situations and come up with decisions almost instantly; we "satisfice", meaning that we think of options and then eliminate them until we find one that's good enough to work; we operate rapid mental simulations in order to extrapolate into the future, but a strong sense of consistency and reality are necessary to use these tools effectively; and, among other things, we can get overly good at recognizing situations to the point we miss subtle elements that clue us off to the fact that these are in fact, different.
I didn't expect this book to range into my interests so much, but I found it suddenly discussing the work of software engineers, application/system design, exploring the way that teams effectively reflect the mind of individuals, and how to effectively communicate intent and guide collaborative decision making processes. A worthy book.
The book, which can occasionally be a little difficult to get through, has beautiful nuggets of information spread throughout that deal with the way we process information and think about decisions. Key takeaways were: the idea that in intense situations, we are almost -never- rationally making decisions, but using recognition to see familiar situations and come up with decisions almost instantly; we "satisfice", meaning that we think of options and then eliminate them until we find one that's good enough to work; we operate rapid mental simulations in order to extrapolate into the future, but a strong sense of consistency and reality are necessary to use these tools effectively; and, among other things, we can get overly good at recognizing situations to the point we miss subtle elements that clue us off to the fact that these are in fact, different.
I didn't expect this book to range into my interests so much, but I found it suddenly discussing the work of software engineers, application/system design, exploring the way that teams effectively reflect the mind of individuals, and how to effectively communicate intent and guide collaborative decision making processes. A worthy book.
Read
December 22, 2022I read Dreyfus's book What Computers Can't Do
Soelberg evaluation strategy
People who are good at what they do relish the chance to explain it to an appreciative audience.
Herbert Simon, who won a Nobel Prize for economics. Simon (1957) identified a decision strategy he calls satisficing: selecting the first option that works. Satisficing is different from optimizing, which means trying to come up with the best strategy. Distinguishing between comparative and singular evaluation strategies is not difficult. When you order from a menu, you probably compare the different items to find the one you want the most. You are performing a comparative evaluation because you are trying to see if one item seems tastier than the others. In contrast, if you are in an unfamiliar neighborhood and you notice your car is low on gasoline, you start searching for service stations and stop at the first reasonable place you find.
Soelberg evaluation strategy
People who are good at what they do relish the chance to explain it to an appreciative audience.
Herbert Simon, who won a Nobel Prize for economics. Simon (1957) identified a decision strategy he calls satisficing: selecting the first option that works. Satisficing is different from optimizing, which means trying to come up with the best strategy. Distinguishing between comparative and singular evaluation strategies is not difficult. When you order from a menu, you probably compare the different items to find the one you want the most. You are performing a comparative evaluation because you are trying to see if one item seems tastier than the others. In contrast, if you are in an unfamiliar neighborhood and you notice your car is low on gasoline, you start searching for service stations and stop at the first reasonable place you find.
August 28, 2017
Ground-breaking, extensive research into decision-making in naturalistic environment, where time pressure and stakes are high. Looking into how experienced firefighters, military personnel, nurses, chess masters and other domain experts make their decisions in real-time situations, where context and conditions vary immensely, the author identifies a model for experiential decision-making, which is very different from traditional models of rational decision-making.
The sources of power identified in the book are available for anyone who is an expert in a domain.
The author explores and exemplifies: intuition, mental simulation, spotting leverage points, non-linear problem solving, the power to read minds, the power to see the invisible and a few others.
I highly reccommend this lecture to business leaders.
The sources of power identified in the book are available for anyone who is an expert in a domain.
The author explores and exemplifies: intuition, mental simulation, spotting leverage points, non-linear problem solving, the power to read minds, the power to see the invisible and a few others.
I highly reccommend this lecture to business leaders.
March 29, 2024
I've been interested in decision making for a longtime, having even taken formal courses at university during my master and read my share of books on the topic. This book is a bit long but filled with extremely entertaining stories that exemplify the importance and role of intuition and how expertise manifests. Found it refreshing and enjoyed it a lot.
August 14, 2015
Interesting, but not interesting enough to request a second time after my library renewals ran out. So it's been returned unfinished. But the time I spent reading it was time well spent.
April 5, 2020
“Most poor decisions come from inadequate knowledge and expertise”
Gary Klein’s Sources of Power, How People Make Decisions, is an absolutely essential read for anyone who is interested in understanding how we decide and how we can make better decisions.
Klein’s groundbreaking research on “naturalistic decision making”, how decisions are made under the constraints of life and not the lab, provides the reader with numerous examples and frameworks for what we do well when we have to make a decision.
Now celebrating its 20th anniversary since it’s initial publishing, Sources of Power outlines the frameworks and pitfalls that individuals should acknowledge when faced with decisions. As Klein points out, there is much-published research on cognitive biases and heuristics (think Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman) but not so much about the numerous abilities we all possess that help us decide. Learning about and understanding both the benefits and downfalls of our decision processes can only help to make us more aware and better-informed decision-makers.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”
Klein takes the reader on a journey through deductive and logical reasoning processes, our analysis of probabilities, our intuition and creation of mental simulations, as well as, the influence and importance of metaphor and storytelling on our decision-making ability. He shares stories of both innovative and creative decisions and the process that led to their fruition and tales of decision disasters and why they occurred. Though at times, a little dry and academic, Sources of Power is abundantly informative and a tremendous resource for those who want to think better and make better decisions.
Overall Score: 4.5 / 5
In a sentence: Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to understanding how we think and decide
Gary Klein’s Sources of Power, How People Make Decisions, is an absolutely essential read for anyone who is interested in understanding how we decide and how we can make better decisions.
Klein’s groundbreaking research on “naturalistic decision making”, how decisions are made under the constraints of life and not the lab, provides the reader with numerous examples and frameworks for what we do well when we have to make a decision.
Now celebrating its 20th anniversary since it’s initial publishing, Sources of Power outlines the frameworks and pitfalls that individuals should acknowledge when faced with decisions. As Klein points out, there is much-published research on cognitive biases and heuristics (think Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman) but not so much about the numerous abilities we all possess that help us decide. Learning about and understanding both the benefits and downfalls of our decision processes can only help to make us more aware and better-informed decision-makers.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”
Klein takes the reader on a journey through deductive and logical reasoning processes, our analysis of probabilities, our intuition and creation of mental simulations, as well as, the influence and importance of metaphor and storytelling on our decision-making ability. He shares stories of both innovative and creative decisions and the process that led to their fruition and tales of decision disasters and why they occurred. Though at times, a little dry and academic, Sources of Power is abundantly informative and a tremendous resource for those who want to think better and make better decisions.
Overall Score: 4.5 / 5
In a sentence: Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to understanding how we think and decide
October 6, 2019
I really struggled to get thorough this book, it's not necessarily the books fault, but it was a bit dry at least for me. While the book does have some interesting ideas and dose present another point of view on the process of decision making, it felt like it was a bit to long for what it was trying to say. At the end of the day there were a few interesting tidbits about the decision process, but and I stress this could just be because it took me a rather long time to get through it, the message that stuck with me the most from this book is that, experts make better decisions than novices. Of course the processes and the way experts make these decisions are expanded upon in great detail. This all makes the book, read like a scientific paper, a sort of meta-analysis of the authors work.
In short read this book if you are interested in the processes that experts in their field use to make decisions, if you are a lay person looking to gain some practical wisdom about decision making, give this book a pass. While not bad, the small tidbits of practical wisdom are few and far between and are not worth the 300+ page commitment.
In short read this book if you are interested in the processes that experts in their field use to make decisions, if you are a lay person looking to gain some practical wisdom about decision making, give this book a pass. While not bad, the small tidbits of practical wisdom are few and far between and are not worth the 300+ page commitment.
April 2, 2019
The book title and first chapter sound promising. Understanding how people make decisions is a great tool that you can use. After moving to the second chapter and reading about the scientific method of the research I was excited (as I have a science background). After that I was expecting to get to the crust of it but it seemed like we never got to the promise or at least what I was hoping.
Useful things that were outlined in the book
- Experts make good decision due to the fact that they know what is important in their fields. And also can detect subtle differences that affect the outcome. One exception is dynamic situation as it is hard to gain expertise when things constantly change.
- Intuition is observing and detecting small things in the environment that we don't necessary process in our conscious mind.
- You can't make a decision if you have a fuzzy goal, clarify your goal and than you can do the decision properly.
Useful things that were outlined in the book
- Experts make good decision due to the fact that they know what is important in their fields. And also can detect subtle differences that affect the outcome. One exception is dynamic situation as it is hard to gain expertise when things constantly change.
- Intuition is observing and detecting small things in the environment that we don't necessary process in our conscious mind.
- You can't make a decision if you have a fuzzy goal, clarify your goal and than you can do the decision properly.
July 4, 2018
I've been fascinated by books on decision-making since I read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. I loved his questioning of whether snap decisions are better ones than well-thought out, over-analysed justified-to-the-end-of-time ones. Gary Klein unpacks this further in Seeing What Others Don't: The remarkable ways we gain Insights.
In that book, he refers quite a bit to this one - especially the stories about decisions made in times of stress - like with firefighters, nurses and those life and death situations, where the importance of good decision making is amplified. What value does intuition have? How do we use it? Should we?
Read my full review here.
In that book, he refers quite a bit to this one - especially the stories about decisions made in times of stress - like with firefighters, nurses and those life and death situations, where the importance of good decision making is amplified. What value does intuition have? How do we use it? Should we?
Read my full review here.
December 21, 2019
Ipsilateral vies yet powerful and compelling
This is my first read to Gary Klein, and I am not disappointed. I found the way to Gary via Malcolm Gladwell books. Gary researches the naturalistic method of everyday decision makers; firefighters, nurses, pilots, military officers and more. His views and methods are well described and published, his commercial interests are clear and well declared. I enjoyed the discussion on mental simulation, analogies and metaphors and the work by De Groote with chess masters is of a high class. I am intrigued by the concept of mind reading and building expectancies and modifying and improvising and would have have liked more focus and in depth analysis.
Enjoy
Yasir
This is my first read to Gary Klein, and I am not disappointed. I found the way to Gary via Malcolm Gladwell books. Gary researches the naturalistic method of everyday decision makers; firefighters, nurses, pilots, military officers and more. His views and methods are well described and published, his commercial interests are clear and well declared. I enjoyed the discussion on mental simulation, analogies and metaphors and the work by De Groote with chess masters is of a high class. I am intrigued by the concept of mind reading and building expectancies and modifying and improvising and would have have liked more focus and in depth analysis.
Enjoy
Yasir
May 29, 2020
Do you believe in superpowers? well, they're real and this book is about it. How firefighters, doctors, nurses and militaries make precise decisions in environments with missing information, time constraints, vague goals and changing conditions? It's a very interesting question, right?
Why did I rate with 4 stars? Because I consider that the extension is unnecessary and the structure is a little hard for a non-specialized reader.
I suggest starting this journey with ¨Blink¨ by Malcon Gladwell, but in case the reader wants to go deep, the next book is definitely Source of Power: How People Make Decisions.
I recommend this book for two kinds of people. First for young professionals with lack of experience in their fields but with huge career ambition. Why? Because its important to know that there aren't shortcuts in the process to becoming a good decision-maker, but through the understanding of the skills that differentiate the good ones, young ambitious professionals could planning and managing their career with more accuracy in order to accelerate the process.
Second, for professionals with high experience who be worried about new times and the value of their experience in this transformative context. Without a doubt, conscious experience is a high entry barrier and a clear distinguishing advantage when important decisions need to be taken. These people could find calm and strategies to enhance their decision-making skills.
Why did I rate with 4 stars? Because I consider that the extension is unnecessary and the structure is a little hard for a non-specialized reader.
I suggest starting this journey with ¨Blink¨ by Malcon Gladwell, but in case the reader wants to go deep, the next book is definitely Source of Power: How People Make Decisions.
I recommend this book for two kinds of people. First for young professionals with lack of experience in their fields but with huge career ambition. Why? Because its important to know that there aren't shortcuts in the process to becoming a good decision-maker, but through the understanding of the skills that differentiate the good ones, young ambitious professionals could planning and managing their career with more accuracy in order to accelerate the process.
Second, for professionals with high experience who be worried about new times and the value of their experience in this transformative context. Without a doubt, conscious experience is a high entry barrier and a clear distinguishing advantage when important decisions need to be taken. These people could find calm and strategies to enhance their decision-making skills.
July 25, 2025
I learnt a lot on the time frames based on decision matrix, assumptions , biases we have and hence, a strong need to have a thorough study of the situation onto, followed by examining and analysis crafting. Scenarios . But many times such as for fire fighters , fighter pilots, medical exigencies time is critical to understanding and acting . After all, it’s all about as contextualised in the book “the sources of power- How people make decisions “ by @Gary Klein. It was worth a time invested and I will pass it on to my father at 89 to have his views after studying it. Excellent piece of knowledge worth investing time to unlearn and learn the new horizons in decision making.
March 16, 2021
How do decision makers, make decisions in a crisis, under time and consequence pressure? Klein's classic work, based on studying fire fighters and commissioned by the military, systemises the process some considered "extra sensory perception" but is actually about instinct based on experience (in Klein's argument). Rational, thought-out decisions may be the order of the day sometimes, but can it beat the processing power of a professional, experience and evidence driven human brain when it really matters? Klein and his team explore.
September 9, 2021
The book is full of examples of professionals' experiences such as firefighters, nurses, pilots, military. It uncovers what intuition actually is. This book is a bit different from what've read before on social behaviour since it is not experiment-based but made on the retrospective description of the situation of the interviewers. Deductions are not made by the author, but by the participants themselves.
The most precious chapter, in my opinion, is about Reading minds and this is what I'd love to share with others.
The most precious chapter, in my opinion, is about Reading minds and this is what I'd love to share with others.
July 31, 2022
Nota: escuché este libro, no lo leí.
El audiolibro en Audible tal vez no es lo más recomendable para este volumen. Si bien hace puntos excelentes, las entrevistas y el trabajo analítico es de primera, la voz narrativa es tediosa. El libro muy largo.
Para bien y para mal, es un referente; por tanto, ya conocía las premisas del libro por Thinking Fast and Slow (el libro fue inspirado en gran medida por este de Sources of Power), y por libros de Malcolm Gladwell, que también lo cita. Esto hizo que me pareciera demasiado familiar Sources of Power, sin disfrutarlo tanto
El audiolibro en Audible tal vez no es lo más recomendable para este volumen. Si bien hace puntos excelentes, las entrevistas y el trabajo analítico es de primera, la voz narrativa es tediosa. El libro muy largo.
Para bien y para mal, es un referente; por tanto, ya conocía las premisas del libro por Thinking Fast and Slow (el libro fue inspirado en gran medida por este de Sources of Power), y por libros de Malcolm Gladwell, que también lo cita. Esto hizo que me pareciera demasiado familiar Sources of Power, sin disfrutarlo tanto
September 8, 2022
Interesting if dry
Was recommended this book in Chet Richard's Certain to Win (2004). The research presented here is certainly interesting, though not ground breaking. It shows how experts can use recognition primed decision making along with richly detailed mental simulations to catch what others may have missed. However there is no guidance on how to actually acquire such expertise and disseminate it. So interesting at a theoretical level but I'm not sure what to do with this book practically
Was recommended this book in Chet Richard's Certain to Win (2004). The research presented here is certainly interesting, though not ground breaking. It shows how experts can use recognition primed decision making along with richly detailed mental simulations to catch what others may have missed. However there is no guidance on how to actually acquire such expertise and disseminate it. So interesting at a theoretical level but I'm not sure what to do with this book practically
June 3, 2023
This book describes in detail the results of the author’s experiments in determining how experts make decisions in real-world situations that are: high pressure, time poor and information limited. His research has allowed him to formulate the Rapid Prime Decision-making model to explain what most people refer to as “intuition”.
The real-life stories are fascinating. The first half of the book is very interesting but the second half not so much. The book is written for two audiences - the scientifically literate casual reader and fellow researchers.
The real-life stories are fascinating. The first half of the book is very interesting but the second half not so much. The book is written for two audiences - the scientifically literate casual reader and fellow researchers.
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