Streetlights & Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making
Book Review of Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making by Gary Klein
Put Your Intuition on Ice
During an interview by The Knowledge Project, Daniel Kahneman was asked to offer some advice on how to make better decisions. His answer summarized was:
Slow Down, Delay your Intuitive response. Put your Intuition on Ice.
Gary Klein’s book, Streetlight and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making, offers some good answers as to what to do next. By challenging several performance improvement claims, he gradually introduces you to both an adaptive model for decisions as well as to the disciplines most likely to grow this skill.
He also presents a model that combines intuition with analysis (Thinking Fast and Slow) along with dozens of examples of what such a strategy looks like in action. The model, the Recognition-Primed Decision Model, focuses on how a situation/problem will:
Generate Clues (leading to)
Pattern Recognition (which activate)
Action Scripts (which you assess by)
Mental Simulation/Dialogue (using your)
Mental Models
All this leads to an action that affects the situation. It can take seconds, or weeks.
Reflecting on Mistakes to Develop Expertise
Klein also emphasizes the ways in which an organization develops, or fails to develop, expertise which in turn has a big impact on both sense-making and pattern recognition.
“Experts are not just accumulating experiences. People become experts by the lessons they draw from their experiences”
In other words, reflecting on mistakes matters. A lot. How an organization balances the resources/practices that help people build expertise while simultaneously helping people reduce mistakes is critical.
The many examples in the book range from breathtaking to hilarious and serve to underscore his hypothesis. Highly Recommended.
Authored by Gino Coca Mir
Canvas Community: Meet the Author
Gino is a Canvas consultant with expertise in leadership development, culture transformation and transformative learning. As the co-founder of Project Challenge in South Florida, he also delivers leadership and team development workshops for Florida International University and the University of Miami. He’s the creator of Power of Percussion, a drumming-based large group activity that has been delivered in various countries over the last 20 years.
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