Anyone who watches the television news has seen images of firefightersrescuing people from burning buildings and paramedics treating bombing victims. Howdo these individuals make the split-second decisions that save lives? Most studiesof decision making, based on artificial tasks assigned in laboratory settings, viewpeople as biased and unskilled. Gary Klein is one of the developers of thenaturalistic decision making approach, which views people as inherently skilled andexperienced. It documents human strengths and capabilities that so far have beendownplayed or ignored.Since 1985, Klein has conducted fieldwork to find out howpeople tackle challenges in difficult, nonroutine situations. Sources of Power isbased on observations of humans acting under such real-life constraints as timepressure, high stakes, personal responsibility, and shifting conditions. Theprofessionals studied include firefighters, critical care nurses, pilots, nuclearpower plant operators, battle planners, and chess masters. Each chapter builds onkey incidents and examples to make the description of the methodology and phenomenamore vivid. In addition to providing information that can be used by professionalsin management, psychology, engineering, and other fields, the book presents anoverview of the research approach of naturalistic decision making and expands ourknowledge of the strengths people bring to difficult tasks.