A modern classic about how people really make decisions: drawing on prior experience using a
combination of intuition and analysis. Since its publication twenty years ago 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 fields including law
enforcement training and petrochemical plant operation. What is the groundbreaking new way to
approach decision making described in this modern classic? 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. Klein proposes a naturalistic approach to decision making which views
people as gaining experience that 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.
