BLINK: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Malcolm Gladwell
Back Bay Books
Self-Help/Psychology
ISBN-10: 0316010669
ISBN-13: 9780316010665

• Read a Review by Stuart Shiffman
• Read an Excerpt

After his bestselling book brought the phrase "tipping point" into popular usage, which is that moment when an idea, product or concept suddenly catches fire with the population at large, Malcolm Gladwell now gives us two more phrases that are likely to become equally well-known: "blink" and "thin-slicing."

We "blink" when we think without thinking. We do that by "thin-slicing," using limited information to come to our conclusion. What's interesting is that in our age of information overload, according to Gladwell, we often make better decisions with snap judgments than we do with volumes of analysis.

The book opens with what reads like a heart-racing detective story about the discovery of a statue that initially fooled one group of art experts for being genuine and was later shown to be a fake by another group. The first group had exhaustively studied and analyzed the statue. Members of the second took one look --- "blinked" --- and declared it suspect and ultimately a forgery. And they were right. Why? How did they know? Why was the first group so wrong? Are there dangers in overanalyzing? Are we always right when we blink? Can we be wrong, even dead wrong? What is the science behind blinking? What can we learn from this phenomenon?

Gladwell addresses these questions and gives a wide range of examples of blinking from the worlds of gambling, speed-dating, tennis, war games, the movies, malpractice suits, popular music, and predicting divorce. Interspersed are accounts of scientific studies that partially, but never completely, explain the largely unconscious phenomenon that we have all experienced at one time or another in our lives. Nevertheless, the hypotheses, the scientific experiments, and the examples are very interesting.

A researcher tells the story of a firefighter in Cleveland who answered a routine call with his men. It was in the back of a one-and-a-half story house in a residential neighborhood in the kitchen. The firefighters broke down the door, laid down their hose, and began dousing the fire with water. It should have abated, but it didn't. As the fire lieutenant recalls, he suddenly thought to himself, "There's something wrong here," and he immediately ordered his men out. Moments after they fled, the floor they had been standing on collapsed. The fire had been in the basement, not the kitchen as it appeared. When asked how he knew to get out, the fireman thought it was ESP, which of course it wasn't. What is interesting to Gladwell is that the fireman could not immediately explain how he knew to get out. From what Gladwell calls "the locked box" in our brains, our fireman just "blinked" and made the right decision. In fact, if the fireman had deliberated on the facts he was seeing, he would have likely lost his life and the lives of his men.

It took well over two hours of questioning for the fire lieutenant to piece together how he knew to get out. (First, the fire didn't respond as it was supposed to; second, the fire was abnormally hot; third, it was quiet when it should have been noisier given the heat.)

One take-away from the book is that how we blink is a function of our experiences, training, and knowledge. For example, prejudice is so unconsciously woven into our society that, despite our best intentions, at an unconscious level it can lead to really bad blinks. This is partly why tall people are frequently seen as natural leaders when there is no basis in reality for that belief. And, in the case of the Amadou Diallo killing in 1999, it is why four policemen incorrectly thin-sliced a situation and wound up killing an innocent man by mistake.

Gladwell is obviously fascinated by the phenomenon of blinking. Properly understood --- and properly prepared for --- it is a valid way to make decisions. Gladwell says, "A world where snap judgments and thin-slicing is taken seriously is a better place." I know some people who might object to that viewpoint, particularly when it comes to decision-making in foreign policy, but if you want an entertaining read, fast-paced, rich in entertaining anecdotes and some unusual scientific research, then BLINK is worth picking up.

   --- Reviewed by Anne Miller, an internationally respected author, speaker and seminar leader. Her latest book, METAPHORICALLY SELLING: How to Use the Magic of Metaphors to Sell, Persuade, & Explain Anything to Anyone, provides a unique Four-Step Model to show people quickly and easily how to become a master of metaphor. For more about Anne Miller and her work, go to www.annemiller.com.

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Review by Stuart Shiffman

From the moment we awake, all of us make a range of decisions throughout the day. Days become weeks, weeks become years, and years become lifetimes. For some, decisions can mean the difference between life and death, freedom and captivity, or war and peace. Yet, most of us pay little attention to the how and why of decision-making, the process that ultimately may have substantial impact on our lives and those who may be affected by our decisions.

BLINK: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell, is an anecdotal, easy-to-read discussion of how our mind leads us to many of the decisions we reach. Gladwell does not present readers with a dry, scientific lecture about the mind. Instead, readers are treated to a breezy account of how split-second decisions are made and perhaps more importantly how people often assume the accuracy of those decisions when, in fact, those decisions are alarmingly incorrect.

Gladwell believes that our society is dedicated to the belief that decisions should be reached after a lengthy and deliberate fact-gathering process. When we are young, this concept is embedded in our brains. Stop and think, look before you leap, and haste makes waste are aphorisms taught to us all at a very young age. But Gladwell gives us examples where the opposite is in fact true, when snap judgments and first impressions are simply more reliable. As an example, he recounts the experience of one of America's busiest hospitals, Cook County Hospital, in Chicago, Illinois. Recently that facility changed the method for diagnosing patients who arrived there with chest pains. Doctors were instructed to gather less information rather than more. They were instructed to focus on critical information such as blood pressure and ECG. Applying the less is better philosophy, Cook County has become a leading American hospital in diagnosing chest pain.

Malcolm Gladwell brings a scientific and business background to his writing. His first book, THE TIPPING POINT, recognizes how ideas, products and behavior become contagious within a culture. In both books, he presents his theories in a manner that can be studied at several levels. Some readers will be interested in the practical applications of the theories presented in BLINK. Others may find far more significance in the theory of decision-making and the ramifications of those concepts on our lives. In both respects, the attraction of BLINK is its potent mix of entertainment with perspective-altering theories.

While BLINK presents the possibility that quick evaluations can be as effective as deliberative decisions, the key word in that premise is "possibility." A quick decision can often be a disaster when it is the result of inappropriate first impressions. We must teach ourselves to recognize the difference between first impressions that are important and those that may be harmful. As an example of the latter, Gladwell cites to the reader something he has identified as the "Warren Harding error." Harding, arguably one of this country's worst Presidents, appeared very much like a President in the minds of many voters. "We have a sense of what a leader is supposed to look like, he writes." "And that stereotype is so powerful that when someone fits it, we simply become blind to other considerations."

BLINK is the type of book that many people will be discussing in the near future. While certainly it is your decision whether or not to read it, follow that first impression and pick up a copy. You will not be sorry you did.

   --- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman

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