Lightbulb Moment | Gary Klein | TEDxDayton

welcome to the TEDx Dayton stage Gary Klein several years ago I added a new slide to the talks that I gave on how people make decisions I had no idea what I was getting myself into I'm a cognitive psychologist I study how people make tough decisions under time pressure and uncertainty historically decision researchers look at the kinds of errors and biases that people make that get in the way of good decisions my research is just the opposite I look at our strengths I look at the ways we can use our experience and so the new slide was basically a blend of those two factors two arrows this is really a very simple slide there's something you've got to reduce that's the down arrow you've got to reduce errors no doubt about that but that's not enough you don't want to go home at night and say I had a great day I didn't make any mistakes you're hoping for more than that and that's the up-arrow you want to increase your achievements your accomplishments you want to have more insights you want to do both of those things audiences resonated to the two slides people would say my organization they're all about the down arrow that's all they care about cutting mistakes and that's what I expected what I didn't expect was the next question that I get what can you tell us about the up arrow where the insights come from and I'd say I don't have any idea and they didn't find that a very satisfying answer I didn't find that a very satisfying answer so it was time to investigate the up-arrow it was time to try to find out where insights come from insights are unexpected discoveries about how things work and how to make them work better examples would be Watson and Crick figuring out that DNA could work as a double helix to create life and replication will be right discovering that if he could change the angle of the wings on his flying machine while it was flying he and Orville could swoop through the air and change directions and swoop through the air like birds those are the kinds of insights that I have in mind as well as many minor insights that happen to us all the time insights are unexpected they come without warning but they've got to come from somewhere so I decided to try to see if I could figure out where they came from I put together a sample of a hundred and twenty insights I collected them from magazine articles I collected them from books from old interviews I had done with experts in different domains and I try to find a single common theme that would explain insights and I failed I couldn't come up with one theme instead I came up with three different pathways one of the pathways was when we tried to solve something tried to achieve a goal and we hit a block an impasse and we don't know how we can get out of it and we break our heads and then if we're lucky all of a sudden it dawns on us here's the answer I'll give you an example ix our problem task is connect the nine dots using four lines without ever lifting the paper or pen from the paper this is a very hard problem if I gave you a half hour most of you wouldn't be able to solve it some of you would some of you would realize what the answer was because the answer is pretty straightforward there's a way to solve it so what stops us what gets in our way well for this kind of an impasse problem this pathway we make unnecessary assumptions that trap us we assume that we're supposed to keep the lines within the boundaries but that's not a requirement and we assume we can only change direction of the lines on a dunt and that's not a requirement so we make unnecessary assumptions that get in our way some researchers have noticed that and said let's come up with critical thinking exercises to overcome this problem with unnecessary assumptions let's have you when you start a project list all the assumptions that you're making and it sounds reasonable but it's not because the assumptions that we're making with the nine dot problems they're unconscious assumptions we're not even aware that they're maker that we're making them and it's very hard to write down unconscious assumptions at least I have trouble doing them so this is the first pathway this is the first pathway the insight is about creative desperation you're stuck and you're trying to figure out some creative way to reach an insight the second pathway is about connections seeing that pieces work together simple example is Charles Darwin in the 1830s collects all kinds of examples from different species and he's wondering where do these variations come from and what keeps them going why does some keep going and others don't and then one day he reads a book by Malthus about population growth and competition for scarce resources and dormin thinks that's it survival of the fittest that's the engine that drives this process of species variation and he has his theory of evolution so he's putting different ideas together to form a new model a new idea some people look at that and say okay so this is all about connecting the dots I hate the metaphor of connecting the dots it simplifies and trivializes what we do makes it sound like we're in kindergarten to start and that thought and oh it's a bunny and that's all there is to it what a missus is the front part okay so this is a dot and that's not unless it's the same dot at a different time and is this a dot or is it a smudge and this could be adopt but I'm not sure it's related to the in other words there's a lot of noise at the beginning that you have to sort through and if you eliminate the noise and just leave the actual dots in hindsight it looks like you're connecting the dots but that's not what you're doing so this is the second path third path that I found is about contradictions where you see the pieces don't fit together give you an example police officers sitting in this car waiting for the light to turn car in front room is Rendell BMW officer watches the driver take a drag on a cigarette flick the ashes and the officer thinks who flicks the ashes your brand new BMW or one yet you borrowed if you borrow from your friend would you do that this doesn't seem to make sense lights them up pulls him over sure enough it's a stolen car okay so now I think you can see why I couldn't come up with one pathway the connection path is how we put ideas together the contradiction path is seeing that ideas don't fit together the creative desperation path you're looking for a belief or an assumption that you can get rid of the connection path you're looking to add a new belief that will give you a richer notion the creative desperation path is all inside what beliefs do I have they're getting in my way the contradiction path is outside what am I seeing that doesn't make sense with everything that I know so these three paths seem to work in their own dynamic and so now when people ask me where two insights come from I can point to that model and say this is what gives rise to insights and actually to satisfy people but it didn't then they asked me the question naturally alright so we see we're insights come from how can we get more insights what advice can you give us about finding were making more discoveries and gaining more insights and again I wasn't expecting that question I had no idea but they seemed keen on trying to come up with some advice so I decided I would give it a shot we really irritated with myself and I ever used that slide with the up and down arrows so what I did was I went into my sample of a hundred and twenty insights to see if there was any clue that I could use this time though I wasn't looking for a common path because a common path in this situation wouldn't really help us very much let's say and this is really trivial let's say I found everybody in my sample had cereal with their breakfast okay could I say here I've solved the problem this is what you need to do have cereal with your breakfast no because there are a lot of people who have cereal with their breakfast and go on to have no insights at all for the next level I'm not going to work so instead I went through 120 insights and I found a group of thirty where there was a comparison and the thirty cases had one person who had the insight a real person and the second person also a real person who had all the same information and didn't come up with the insight so now I had a natural comparison and I could see what distinguish between the two of them and what I found was personally the insight had an active curious mindset they were wondering about things unexpected things unusual things they enjoy playing with ideas they enjoyed speculating that was just the way their head were people who didn't have the insight were very heads down let's get the job done don't bother me with distractions keep everything simple don't give me some new hypothetical ideas that might not work a novel idea what chance it's gonna fail let's stick to the game plan so that was the difference between the two groups based on that difference I think I may have an idea for how you can increase insights and I haven't tested it this is pure speculation but you might want to try it the idea is simply to try to get yourself into the mindset into the frame of thinking of having an active curious mindset about the things that occur around you rather than go about your work mindlessly following the routines it's a mindset that seems as if it might promote insights how can you do this I have four suggestions first suggestion make insights a habit a part of your repertoire when we miss a connection we kick ourselves why didn't I notice that or if there's an anomaly and we don't pick it up until it's too late what an idiot we are and we're critical of ourselves but even at that time we've made discoveries we're smarter than we were before give yourself credit for even in hindsight having the insight and also there are times when you do notice connections in time you do spot anomalies that change your behavior so you are having insights but you don't notice them we tend to just shrug them off or go oh go on not give them much attention well notice them celebrate them that's how to make them part of your repertoire some people have suggested maybe you should keep a log of your insights and I think that would be fun I think will be a and formative but most of you aren't going to keep logs I know that but you can at least notice and appreciate the insights that you have more than that we are currently doing second thing you can do is use your curiosity what should you be curious about that is anything that comes up that's unusual or unexpected or catches your attention and you want instead of saying I'm too busy give it a few seconds and wonder about it and if you need more direction than that back to this model you could be curious about the assumptions you're making are they really important you need all of them maybe you should Rhian them you could be curious about coincidences instead of saying that's just a coincidence a mere coincidence maybe it is but sometimes coincidences put us on the road to connections so give it some thought what's going on underneath there contradictions anomalies most of them are just irrelevant and you explain them away but then you don't get any insights and so you've seen an anomaly sometimes you may want to spend a few seconds what is that anomaly telling us that guy who flicked his ashes in his new BMW what's that all about and give it a few seconds thought about what might be happening the idea here is to try to use your curiosity more effectively the third step is to try to encourage other people and get them to generate insights and there's ways of doing that if you have progress reviews you ask for time and schedule ask them what surprised you since the last time we talked and if they say nothing surprised me everything is fine you don't have to worry that's when you need to worry fourth step is irritations confusions and contradictions and conflicts the things that irritate us they irritate us but we could still use them I'll give you an example I was once putting on a seminar on leadership and the difficulty of explaining vision and one person in the seminar said I know just what you mean I had somebody I brought him into my office I gave him a task he understood it out he went brought him back a few days later he went in the wrong direction I totally missed it up and I said before you sent him out did you ask him what did you think I wanted and he said no why would I do that why would you do that you might learn something maybe he had a bad idea or maybe your instructions weren't as clear and he had a valid interpretation even if it wasn't the one you wanted and so the idea here is to try to take on this active curious mindset that might bring you into a world of possibilities we know we need to reduce errors that's valuable in itself but sometimes like people like to reduce errors because they don't want to be blamed it didn't go well but I followed all the steps it's not my fault that's playing not to lose I think you can do better I think you can play to win good luck you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 40,267

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Technology, Cognitive science

Id: n5OO9L67jL4

Length: 17min 9sec (1029 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2015