Summary: Intuition at Work

Review and Analysis of Klein's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782806247391
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Decision Making
• Index: Business

The must-read summary of Gary Klein's book: `Intuition at Work: Why Developing Your Gut Instincts Will Make You Better at What You Do`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Gary Klein's book `Intuition at Work` shows that about 90% of the critical decisions a person actually makes will generally be based more on their “gut feelings” about the right thing to do than hard data. Yet intuition is an undervalued facet of business decisions. This summary suggests that a better strategy would be to acknowledge the importance of intuition and become better at using it. It defines intuition as “the way we translate our past experiences into decisions about our present actions”. Excellent intuition is not ESP or magic; it’s making quick, good decisions on experience. Firefighters, for example, are able to make life-and-death decisions rapidly because they pick up on the clues of what is happening and know intuitively how they should react without requiring detailed analysis. This summary recommends analysing past decisions for their effectiveness and your thought processes; it suggests specific decision making exercises to practice your skills. It also demonstrates that sometimes waiting to make a decision is still an intuitive process. 

Added-value of this summary: 
• Save time 
• Understand key concepts 
• Expand your business knowledge

To learn more, read `Intuition At Work` and discover an excellent guidebook for good decisions and long-term strategy.

Summary of Intuition at Work (Gary Klein)

1. How to build your business intuition

To build your level of business intuition, you can choose from two generic options:

1. Passively wait until you have acquired enough experience that it begins to influence your decisions.
2. Be proactive in building the skill sets of intuitive decision making by:
   • Understanding what intuition is.
   • Learning the methods and disciplines of decision making.
   • Learning how to blend intuition with analysis.

Consider how you would answer these questions:

• Where do your business hunches come from?
• What is it that sometimes sets off mental alarm bells inside your head when you see something?
• What is the process by which you have been taught to make good decisions?

Most people have been taught the best way to make a good decision in business is:

1. Analyze your problem thoroughly.
2. List all your different options.
3. Evaluate those options on a consistent criteria.
4. Identify which option offers the most benefits.

That sounds nice in theory because it is logical and methodical rather than leaving the outcome to chance. The only problem is this approach doesn’t work all that well in the real world. More often than not, decisions have to be made in challenging situations where:

• Confusing and complex factors need to be taken into account.
• There are limitations on the amount of information available.
• You have severe resource constraints.
• Little snippets of inconclusive facts abound.
• There are severe consequences in making the wrong decision.

In other words, in most situations, people don’t follow the classical, scientific model of decision-making. Instead, there will often be one approach which is favored above all others, and the facts which supported that preferred approach will be emphasized while conflicting facts will be swept under the carpet. Or the evaluation criteria will be tweaked until there is only one decision which can be reached.

Since intuition already influences our decisions more than we may acknowledge or even realize, it is worthy of closer inspection. The five key elements of a good working model of business intuition are:

1. A new situation that arises generates a set of cues which are usually grouped together.
2. That group of clues will form a pattern. An experienced manager will look at a set of clues and notice whether or not it matches any pattern which has been seen in the past.
3. Based on the pattern that has been used in previous situations, an experienced person will than have in mind a specific plan of action. They will anticipate what will happen next and the most effective course to follow. Action scripts are the typical ways a person with experience will respond. The more experience a person has with any specific pattern, the more obvious the best course of action will be, and the easier it becomes to make a good decision.
   
4. Mental stimulation means to consciously imagine what will happen when an action script gets implemented. An experienced person will know what to expect as specific actions are taken, and will watch for the clues this is, in fact, happening.
5. In order to build an effective mental stimulation, mental models of how things work are needed. Experienced people know how things work from their own hands-on examples. Managers help their subordinates build better mental models to increase their effectiveness in the future.

In most situations, all of these elements are worked through so rapidly it appears intuitive decisions are being made instantaneously, but this is not the case. All of the key elements are being worked through in rapid succession.

The advantages of intuitive decisions in business are:

• Situations can be sized up quickly – instead of requiring a long, laborious effort to analyze it.
• Problems and anomalies can be noticed early – before they become a more serious problem.
• There will be confidence – the first option which comes to mind is a good one.
• There will be an anticipation of what will happen next – so adequate preparations can be made beforehand.
• You avoid getting overloaded with data – keeping things simple and manageable.
• You will be able to remain calm and composed – even when required to act in the face of pressure and uncertainty.
• Alternatives can be found – when a plan runs into any sort of difficulty or barriers.
• You will recognize similar patterns in the future – allowing you to become better over time at performing those tasks which lie at the center of your career.

Obviously, the key to obtaining these benefits is to develop enough real-life experience in your particular field so you develop expertise. The broa...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Book Presentation
• Summary of Intuition at Work (Gary Klein)
• About the Summary Publisher
• Copyright