Streetlights and Shadows

Gary A. Klein takes ten widely accepted claims about decision making and argues that they fit the laboratory better than real life. Standard advice, such as collecting as much information as possible, comparing options and fixing goals before starting, works when a situation is clear, but hard decisions come wrapped in complexity and ambiguity. Masses of information help only if that information is accurate and complete, which is rare in practice. Klein draws on airline pilots, weather forecasters, sports announcers and Patrick O'Brian's fictional Captain Jack Aubrey, decision makers who used their expertise to read cues, patterns and trends that others missed. His case is that no set of rules, procedures or analytical methods can stand in for experience.

Serial entrepreneur Armina Sirbu said it explains, from a scientific angle, how intuition works and how it can be trained.