Seeing What Others Don't, and Improving Honesty

• Published date: 01 November 2014
• Date: 01 November 2014
• Author: David M. Cannon,Stephen R. Goldberg
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22007

65

© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22007

Seeing What Others Don’t, and Improving

Honesty

David M. Cannon and Stephen R. Goldberg

BOOKS REVIEWED

Klein, Gary, 2013, Seeing What

Others Don’t: The Remarkable

Ways We Gain Insight (New

York, NY: Public Affairs)

Ariely, Dan, 2013, The (Hon-

est) Truth About Dishonesty:

How We Lie To Everyone—

Especially Ourselves (New York,

NY: HarperCollins)

In the first book selected

for review, Klein discusses the

process through which insights

are developed in an organiza-

tion. In the second book, Ariely

discusses how we lie to others as

well as to ourselves and provides

suggestions to improve honesty.

SEEING WHAT OTHERS DON’T

Insights into an organiza-

tion and its internal and external

environment are critical to prob-

lem solving, decision making,

and innovation throughout an

organization. In Seeing What

Others Don’t, research psy-

chologist Gary Klein thoroughly

examines the processes through

which insights are developed.

Based on his analysis of anec-

dotal accounts of insight and

published research, he identi-

fies the factors associated with

insight and models the paths

individuals take to resolve uncer-

tainty into insightful knowledge.

Klein utilizes a somewhat

trite but useful definition of

insight: “an unexpected shift to a

better story … about how things

work.” Stories are a constant

theme throughout the book,

which is essentially a discussion

of numerous examples that illus-

trate the various mechanisms by

which insight is gained.

Seeing consists of 18 chap-

ters organized into three parts.

The 8 chapters of Part 1 use

stories to present several real-

life examples that illustrate the

diversity of how insights are

derived and the value of insights

in dealing with a wide range of

situations and problems. The

author analyzes numerous nar-

ratives, attempting to identify

common factors that gave rise

to insights. Finding no common

factors in the stories, Klein was

able to classify the mechanisms

that led to insights into four

categories: connections, coinci-

dences and curiosities, contra-

dictions, and creative despera-

tion.

In the connection category,

insights were developed by find-

ing relations in the available

data. The coincidences and curi-

osities category reflect situations

where one or more data points

was sufficiently unusual as to

cause the story’s subject to look

for and develop a “better story”

in which the data point would

not be unusual. The contradic-

tions category reflects situations

where inconsistencies in the

available data are eliminated

with a “better story.” Finally,

the creative desperation category

includes those insights obtained

from trying a “crazy idea” out

of desperation when nothing

else worked. Part 1 ends with

the author’s presentation of his

Triple Path Model of insight

formation, where an insight is

triggered by a contradiction, the

making of connections, or cre-

ative desperation.

Part 2 of the book should be

of interest in an organizational