Sources of Power, 20th Anniversary Edition: How People Make Decisions

Synopsis: As seen in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: the modern classic on how people make decisions by drawing on prior experience and using a combination of intuition and analysis

We have all seen images of firefighters rescuing people from burning buildings and paramedics treating bombing victims. How do these individuals make the split-second decisions that save lives? Most studies of decision making, based on artificial tasks assigned in laboratory settings, view people as biased and unskilled. In this modern classic, Gary A. Klein proposes a naturalistic approach to decision making, which views people as gaining experience that then enables them to use a combination of intuition and analysis to make decisions. To illustrate this approach, Klein tells stories of people—from pilots to chess masters—acting under such real-life constraints as time pressure, high stakes, personal responsibility, and shifting conditions.

Since its publication, Sources of Power has been enormously influential. The book has sold more than 50,000 copies, has been translated into six languages, has been cited in professional journals that range from Journal of Marketing Research to Journal of Nursing, and is mentioned by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink. Author Gary Klein has collaborated with Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and served on a team that redesigned the White House Situation Room to support more effective decision making. The model of decision-making Klein proposes in the book has been adopted in many fields, including law enforcement training and petrochemical plant operation.