Book Review: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Sometimes you just have to be lucky. When I was on the Olean campus, I came upon a stack of books that appeared to be giveaways. They were all copies of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. After asking around, I could get a copy. The one that I chose had marginalia throughout. I am always fascinated by what others are finding important in a book.

I am a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Through the power of storytelling, he can illustrate important points worth keeping in mind. His books David and Goliath and Outliers are ones I have read before. I knew the Blink would be another book worth reading. I was not disappointed.

When Should We Trust Our Instincts?

Blink is about the power of the mind. It is 296 pages long, organized into six sections along with an introduction and conclusion. Each section is a series of interrelated stories of interrelated perspectives on the overall theme.

In Blink, Gladwell outlined three objectives of the book:

• Quick decisions can be as good as slow, deliberate decisions.
• We need to know when to trust our instincts and when to ignore them.
• We can learn to control our snap decisions.

The book began with a powerful story about the sale of a statue to the J. Paul Getty Museum in California. The museum researched the statue at length before purchasing it. However, art experts looked at it and immediately believed something was wrong. They made a snap judgment regarding authenticity. It seems the art experts are right. It is a forgery.

In subsequent stories, Gladwell showed the power of using instinct to decide and times where instincts produced horrible results.

The human mind has two decision-making mechanisms. One is extremely fast. It is the one that does its best to keep us safe. The other is more rational. The key to success is being able to harness the correct part of the brain at the right time.

Expertise and Pattern Recognition

One thing that makes someone an expert is the ability to recognize and interpret patterns. According to Gladwell, code breakers in WWII could identify Morse code operators by their unique way of tapping out codes. They could then locate these individuals as they moved around the battlefield, thus identifying there their units were. This definitely falls into operational security. Gladwell also talked about researchers who could predict a divorce or malpractice lawsuits after watching a married couple or doctor talk for a few minutes. Their accuracy was extremely high.

Gladwell provided examples showing how systems could capture this expert knowledge and decision-making. The key was to identify indicators that led to the right decisions. One example he shared was about a hospital that used a checklist to determine what level of care to give a patient. Sometimes, less information is more informative. With Millenium Challenge, having more information bogged down operations and decision making.

Reducing Bias in Snap Judgments

Near the end of the book, Gladwell spoke about social action based on what he had discovered. Sometimes our senses prejudge situations. He shared an example where blind auditions resulted in an increase in women musicians. This is one thing I like about The Voice. The looks of the performers do not prejudice the judges. Gladwell offered commentary on other areas that could use more blind observation in order to reduce discrimination.

As expected, Blink was a fascinating book. I certainly learned quite a bit while reading it. I certainly would recommend it to others.

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Additional Reading

• Book Review: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
• Book Review: Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know

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