Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights. Kindle Edition!
By Gary Klein (Author)

 

Hello, my name is Maria and today we’re talking about “Seeing What Others Don’t” by Gary Klein.

 

As the title suggests, this book is all about the issues that we face when trying to gain insights.

 

Klein offers various ways in order to combat these issues.

 

Klein has developed what he calls “The Triple Path Model”, which is intended to explain the three main paths to developing insights.

 

So let’s get started!

 

According to Klein, there are three paths to developing insights.

 

They are Contradiction, Connection, and Creative desperation.

 

Contradiction involves being open-minded towards ideas, that go against our beliefs, and using that information to develop new insights.

 

So finding information whether intentionally or unintentionally that goes against what we intuitively believe and being open enough to that information that we can develop a new understanding on a specific topic.

 

Connection on the other hand is all about creating new beliefs and being open to unfamiliar information, and then using that unfamiliar information to create new ideas regarding a specific topic.

 

And finally, creative desperation involves us examining assumptions that we hold to be true and seeing if they could be holding us back.

 

So this involves mainly in desperate situations where we have to almost use a counterintuitive approach.

 

It involves examining something that we traditionally hold to be true but seeing that in a certain situation it can be holding us back from finding the truth.

 

So these are the three main paths according to Klein that we use to develop insights.

 

One very interesting aspect of this book is that Klein has a very simple equation which states that Performance Improvements = decrease in errors + increase in insights.

 

And this book focuses on giving us ways to effectively improve and increase our ability to gain insights.

 

However, our society as a whole focuses on decreasing errors.

 

Klein discusses a variety of reasons that contribute to that.

 

One thing I find most interesting is that we focus on errors because they are more controllable.

 

We can eliminate and statistically prove if we’re decreasing our errors often times.

 

However, insights there’s no clear way to prove that we’ve gained insights.

 

There’s no clear path necessarily.

 

It just happens.

 

So it’s very difficult to control.

 

It involves much more of the unknown.

 

And Klein highlights that in business settings a lot of times we claim to want creative and innovative ideas, but actually we want ideas that fit the mold of the traditional path of thinking that we accept nowadays.

 

And if we really want creative ideas, that involves gaining new insights.

 

Being able to that is very difficult and a process that can’t really be tracked efficiently and necessarily be measured.

Now, let’s go over the positives, negatives and who I think should be reading this book.

 

One thing I like about this book is the structure.

 

It starts off by explaining what triggers insights.

 

Then it moves on to explain what holds us back from insights.

 

And finally gives us practical examples and ideas about how we can improve our ability to gain insights.

 

So I like the structure of it, it’s very clear and it makes sense how Klein takes us through this book.

 

So that’s something that’s very important and really helps clarify the ideas he’s expressing.

 

The only negative I found with this book is that at times it’s slightly repetitive.

 

I think there might be times where he goes over examples he’s already previously explained again.

 

I don’t think that’s really necessary at all.

 

Who should read this book?

 

Well, if you’ve read any of Malcolm Gladwell’s works, I think you’d definitely enjoy this book because it’s a similar style in terms of the way the information is formatted and it gives many examples and uses those examples to prove a point.

 

So if you read any Malcolm Gladwell books, and you like him as an author, this book is definitely for you.

 

I also think if you’re interested in innovation this book is for you because insights are very important in developing innovation and so I think they go hand-in-hand and will help you develop ideas of how you can more effectively gain insights and be innovative.

 

That’s it, that’s my book review for “Seeing what others don’t” by Gary Klein.

 

If you want to see what I talked about here in a written format or you want more information on the author, please head over to my blog www.promotekdbook.com.

 

Next week I’ll be back with another book review!

 

But until then, keep reading and keep learning!

 

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Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XCH5MSQ