Streetlights and Shadows

In making decisions, when should we go with our gut and when should we
try to analyze every option? When should we use our intuition and when should we
rely on logic and statistics? Most of us would probably agree that for important
decisions, we should follow certain guidelines--gather as much information as
possible, compare the options, pin down the goals before getting started. But in
practice we make some of our best decisions by adapting to circumstances rather than
blindly following procedures. In Streetlights and Shadows, Gary Klein debunks the
conventional wisdom about how to make decisions. He takes ten commonly accepted
claims about decision making and shows that they are better suited for the
laboratory than for life. The standard advice works well when everything is clear,
but the tough decisions involve shadowy conditions of complexity and ambiguity.
Gathering masses of information, for example, works if the information is accurate
and complete--but that doesn't often happen in the real world. (Think about the
careful risk calculations that led to the downfall of the Wall Street investment
houses.) Klein offers more realistic ideas about how to make decisions in real-life
settings. He provides many examples--ranging from airline pilots and weather
forecasters to sports announcers and Captain Jack Aubrey in Patrick O'Brian's Master
and Commander novels--to make his point. All these decision makers saw things that
others didn't. They used their expertise to pick up cues and to discern patterns and
trends. We can make better decisions, Klein tells us, if we are prepared for
complexity and ambiguity and if we will stop expecting the data to tell us
everything.