Before you Get Creative; Before you Innovate – You Might Need an… Insight – (Insight from Gary Klein, Seeing What Others Don’t)

Mr. Klein says that we are pretty good at reducing errors when we focus on them – but, that does not lead us to insights automatically. We have to also work at gaining/adding insights.

The performance equation in the diagram shows that to improve performance we need to do two things. The down arrow shows that we want to reduce errors and uncertainty. The up arrow is what we want to increase —insights. To improve performance we need to reduce errors and uncertainty and we also need to increase insights.
Insight is the opposite of predictable. Insights are disruptive. They come without warning, take forms that are unexpected, and open up unimagined opportunities. They are dis-organizing. Insights disrupt progress reviews because they reshape tasks and even revise goals. They carry risks —unseen pitfalls that can get managers in trouble.
Gary Klein — Insights Vs. Organizations:  How organizations reduce insights.

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Over the weekend, I read the Kindle sample pages of Seeing What Others Don’t:  The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights by Gary Klein.  I‘m hooked.  It’s now high on my reading list.

It turns out that insights are rare (we knew that), but there is a pattern.

First what are we talking about?

Insight: 

• the power or act of seeing into a situation:  penetration
• the act or result of apprehending the inner nature of things or of seeing intuitively

Mr. Klein was “drawn into two mysteries.  First, What sparks an insight?  And (second), What prevents us from grasping an insight?”

And, to have in insight, Mr. Klein discovered that you need:

• a sudden discovery
• a jolt of excitement
• a combination of ideas that fit tightly together
• a feeling of confidence in the new direction.
• and, no one else has the insight, despite receiving the same information.   

His key story in the first pages of his book is about a scientist, Martin Chalfie. He had been working on a problem/study with worms.  He was sort of “stuck.”  (Note:  insights are really useful when you are stuck).  He went to hear a lecture – an “unrelated” lecture.  And, in a flash of insight prompted by the lecture, he started scribbling, then changed the way he was conducting his study on worms, and ended up prompting other scientists to genuine breakthroughs that will matter to the economy, and to human health.  And, by the way, he won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  And that moment of insight was really key to this entire cascade of events.

It’s too early to tell you if the book reveals how you can actually become an insight hunter – and finder.  (The next to last chapter is:  “Tips for Becoming an Insight Hunter”).  But I’ve got a hunch it might open our eyes a little wider and move us down that yellow brick road of discovering significant insights.

And this I am certain about:  we could definitely use some more insights to lead us to some more breakthroughs…