Seeing What Others Don't
The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
'No one has taught me more about the complexities and mysteries of human decision-making' Malcolm Gladwell
'Gary Klein is a living example of how useful applied psychology can be when it is done well' Daniel Kahneman
Insight is everything. At its most profound, it can change the world. At its simplest, it can solve everyday problems. It can be used to build businesses, solve crimes, progress science and make many aspects of our lives quicker, easier, bigger or better.
Yet remarkably we often unwittingly build barriers to seeing what is in front of us. Both as individuals and organisations we can hold on to flawed beliefs and conform to established processes that can interfere with our perceptions. Having clear insight can transform the way in which we understand things, the decisions we make and the actions we take.
In this groundbreaking study, renowned cognitive psychologist Gary Klein uses an eclectic miscellany of real-life stories to bring to life the process of insight. He demonstrates the five key strategies for spotting connections and contractions to ensure you too can see what others don't.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Klein (The Power of Intuition) investigates the ways in which people can have a sudden insight that results in new inventions, revisions of accepted beliefs, or even winning fantasy baseball. After years of studying decision-making, Klein finds that insight is much harder to quantify. Creating a definition, that insight is "an unexpected shift to a better story", took him considerable time. Using examples from history, current events and his own experience, Klein developed a list of factors that contribute to insight: connections, coincidence, curiosities, contradictions, and creative desperation. These traits are blended with experience and an ability to improvise. His analysis of how Google searches and corporate culture inhibit insight is intriguing, while suggestions for improving the chances of having a breakthrough are practical and useful for many facets of life. They include: listen to what others are saying; rather than argue, ask how they arrived at their conclusion and pay attention to their thought processes; and be open to changing the way you think and perceive. While this is a fascinating preliminary report, Klein seems to know that he has only begun to research the topic; The Grand Unified Theory of insight has yet to be discovered.
