People who design decision aids and information technologies usually try to help people perform their jobs better. But insights can show us how to perform our jobs differently. And so the decision aids and technologies can get in the way of insights!

By the time executives get to high levels, they are good at making others feel confident in their judgment, even if there's no strong basis for the judgment.

It is instructive to see how organizations pursue their goal of reducing errors and uncertainty. They impose standards, employ checklists, demand that knowledge workers list assumptions for their conclusions and document all sources. These actions either directly interfere with forming insights or create an environment where insights and discoveries are treated with suspicion because they might lead to errors. They signal to knowledge workers that their job is not to make mistakes. Even if they don't make discoveries, no one can blame them as long as they don't make mistakes.

You shouldn't trust the judgments of stock brokers picking individual stocks.

Intuition is when we use our experience, and the patterns we have learned, to rapidly size up situations and know how to respond without going through deliberate analysis. Intuitions depend on the patterns we have acquired. Insight is about gaining new patterns.

You need strategies that help rule things out. That's the opposite of saying, "This is what my gut is telling me; let me gather information to confirm it."

People who design decision aids and information technologies usually try to help people perform their jobs better. But insights can show us how to perform our jobs differently. And so the decision aids and technologies can get in the way of insights!