Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

The mistake was too try and get all of these wild animals onto the same boat. The book a series of semi-socio-scientific articles on insight and intuition. It is not a cohesive theory.

The writing is enjoyable – I read the most of it in a single plane flight. Some of the insights provide building blocks for understanding how certain professionals (people who practice a subject or skill for many years) are able to develop an additional sense about things — gamblers, art curators, policemen. They are essentially seeing something that doesn’t register at the conscious-level but provides them a gut-feel about the thing. Actually, I should say that these articles are how this MIGHT be happening – it’s more speculation based on the diverse theories of a number of different researchers. Individually the stories and ideas are believable. Unfortuately, Gladwell fumbles in trying take them into some unified theory that is comprehensible let alone cohesive — at times you wonder “where is he going with this?”. Without that thread the indivudal beads get lost and fade into memory as clever ideas…and not much more. Without confidence in the grand idea, the individual pieces begin to feel simply exploratory. It’s a shame because there are some remarkable ideas. He’s a good documenter of curiousities of research (sort of like a Ken Burns is to historical things) so the storytelling is good enough for entertainment. Another reviewer likened it the addage about Chinese food, tasty but hungry an hour later. I agree. Flawed but still some interesting ideas to puzzle over.

This is one of the most fascinating books I have read in some time. The book centers on the concept of how fast we really do make judgments, called “thin slicing”, and how deeper analysis can sometimes provide less information than more. It is all about cognitive speed.

The concept of “thin slicing” is dissected and explained. What I found fascinating, and also common sense, is that we process information on a subconscious level, “behind the door”, and process so holistically that to over analyze can actually hinder our ability to make decisions.

Several key points are applicable in business. One of the in depth studies looked at a military leader who was particularly successful. One of his more poignant observations was that a great leader needs to let the people do their work. When deciding how often to follow up “you are diverting them, now they are looking upward instead of downward. You are preventing them from resolving the situation”. (Page 118) Further “allowing people to operate without having to explain themselves constantly … enables rapid cognition” (Page 119). It seems that most micro-management actually prevents people from successful decision making.

Another strange phenomenon occurs when we try and explain how we come to some conclusions. It seems that the more we try to analyze how we come to some conclusions the less reliable they become.

The ability to absorb and detect minute changes in facial expressions allows us to essentially “read minds” if we pay attention. There are several chapters on how reliable we can be in predicting behavior with very little information.

Overall, this book is so well written that I had a hard time putting it down. My only compliant, and it is a minor one, is that the book just ends. No summary or wrap up, just “boom”, it’s over. However, that is more a testament to how engaging the book is I suppose. Highly recommended!

Malcolm Gladwell is one of the most brilliant non- fiction writers working today. He is a researcher and a thinker who looks into social phenomena and makes connections between diverse activities and areas of life in startling and interesting ways. While he is most known for the concept of ‘ the tipping point’ I personally found his most remarkable essay to be on key figures in human social networks, and the way one individual may connect hundreds of even thousands different kinds of people together. In this present work which I have read the British edition of he writes about what he calls ‘adaptive unconscious’ about processes of mind and decision that determine much of our action in life. He opens with a consideration of the Getty Museum’s considering the purchase of what seemed to be a great new discovery, a statue of a certain kind called a ‘kourous. The Getty went to the greatest experts in scientifically evaluating the materials of the statue and they come up with it as genuine. However when the Getty showed the stature to people who live in the world of art history most of them instinctively recoiled from it. They made the kind of ‘ blink’ split – second decision which bypassed their consciousness. They proved to be right. Gladwell goes on to consider ‘ thin- slicing’ decision making in other areas, that is decision-making which is based on a very small set of experience. In his second chapter he looks at the work of a psychologist John Gottman who has developed a method of predicting whether a couple will eventually divorce through noting certain qualities revealed in a fifteen – minute conversation between them. Stonewalling, criticizing are two of the factors attended to but the key one is the degree of contempt one of the partners may have for another. But for Gladwell the focus is on understanding that it does not take a prolonged process of consciously investigating and collecting data but rather a quick- thin- slice evaluation to get to the truth of the situation. Gladwell investigates other kinds of situations in which in one case a firefighter, in another a Vietnam War veteran and Marine officer show a kind of instinctive ‘ right action’ which would not be possible had they talked or thought too much at the wrong time and confused themselves in the process. Gladwell writes of very interesting characters , finds people of extraordinary abilities even when it comes to selling cars or tasting food. He centers on non- conventional figures who have in one way or another extraordinary gifts in ordinary life. In one chapter he looks at the diagnosis of heart- attacks in emergency room and shows how a method a researcher tried to push and had rejected for years has enabled quick, life- saving diagnosis. In this situation too he shows how too much information, too much conscious rehashing of data can interfere with a kind of quick- decision making a kind of ‘ in a blink’ judgment. Here however it should be pointed out that Gladwell insists that in many areas of life it is only because there has been prior training, study, rehearsal that such wise- snap judgment is possible. All in all this is a richly informative and highly interesting work, a very pleasurable read.

It will take more than one blink to read, but it will be worth it.