Book Review: Seeing What Others Don't
The remarkable ways we gain insights
Gary Klein
Klein starts this book with the account of two policemen sat in traffic who watch a young man drop ash into a brand new BMW. “Who would drop ash in a brand new car? Not the owner of the car…Possibly a guy who had just stolen the car” This type of insight and many others like it are what enable progress. However insights cannot be built into medium term plans or macrocycles they are:“the opposite of predictable. Insights are disruptive.They come without warning…and open up unimagined opportunities”. ‘
Seeing what others don’t’ is a summary of the studies of Gary Klein as an experiential psychologist. It is a systematic analysis of human interest stories in order to examine human decision making. He defines insight as being: “an unexpected shift in the way we understand things. It comes without warning. It's not something that we think is going to happen and that's why it's unexpected. It feels like a gift and in fact it is.”
The equation he uses to illustrate how improvement in any field comes about is attached.
The reduction of errors is part of a downward arrow and the development of insight is part of an upward arrow. He also compares the idea of the downward arrow and the upward arrow with the work of Daniel Kahneman. He states that it would be very easy to compare the concept of System 1 and System 2 thinking and the balance needed between them with the above. The inherent difficulty with this balance is that very often reducing errors and increasing insights are contradictory. Klein argues that“the actions we take to reduce errors and uncertainty can get in the way of insights”
Klein argues that more and more organisations are becoming increasingly concerned about the reduction of errors and emphasising the downward arrow. He uses the example of the CIA, who in the aftermath of the faulty intelligence leading to the Iraq war have introduced vast systems of bureaucracy that can stamp out any chance of human error. Similarly, the BBC responding to the Andrew Gilligan ‘sexed up dossier’ failed to report the sexual offences of Jimmy Saville. Klein’s argument is that in every walk of life it is essential to examine what we spend our days doing and ensure that the balance is in favour of the upward arrow. It is the fear of failure or mistake which Klein calls the “War on Error” that prevents the insight necessary for truly outstanding and innovative work.
“Insights help us to escape the confinements of perfection, which traps us in a compulsion to avoid errors and in a fixation on the original plan or vision”
In order to reach insight, he argues for his “Triple Path Model” The first path being Contradiction, where you find an inconsistency in something you already hold to be true. The second being the Connection path, where you find a new coincidence. And the third being Creative Desperation where you are forced to come up with something new. These ‘triggers’ in turn allow people to add or remove ‘anchors’or core beliefs about the world to their understanding.
Klein illustrates these points with a varied selection of stories, moving from Dr Michael Gottlieb’s discovery of AIDS through the connection of different patients with the same symptoms. Daniel Boone saving his daughters from kidnap by American Indians in 1776 using Creative Desperation to change the tactics of their pursuit. Meredith Whitney predicting problems on Wall Street as a result of subprime mortgage debt through the Contradiction path.
His recommendation for developing your own insights is to “foster serendipity - the random collision of ideas” networking across a broad spectrum of different communities. In turn it is important to not fixate on anything you hold to be true, take an active stance in considering as many alternatives as possible and develop ‘playful reasoning’