Business Book Review: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink reveals the science behind snap judgments, gut feelings, and unconscious thinking that shape our decisions and perceptions.
My Rating: ★★★★
Length: 304 pages
Publisher: Penguin Press
Released: 2007
Key Takeaways for Personal Branding
Malcom Gladwell is the best-selling author who brought us The Tipping Point and The Outliers. In Blink, he highlights the power of thinking…without thinking.
Adaptive Unconscious
‘Blink’ is that feeling you get in your gut when you know something before you know why you know something.
Blink tells the story of a statue assessed for months on end by all the top experts for its authenticity before its museum buyers committed to its 10 million dollar price tag. Meanwhile, other experts knew instantaneously upon seeing it that it wasn’t genuine. Many described the immediate feeling they had when they first saw the statue, like repulsion or a feeling of glass between themselves and the statue. Others immediately heard the word ‘fresh’ for what should have been an ancient relic.
Leaping to these conclusions is described as the ‘adaptive unconscious’, a study of conscious decision-making, which was a relatively new field of psychology at the time of publication. This can be thought of as a giant computer that quickly and quietly processes data so we can keep functioning. We toggle between conscious and unconscious modes of thinking. Your mind assesses high amounts of data for decision-making, danger, goal-setting, and taking action in the most efficient way possible.
Thin-Slicing
‘Thin-slicing’ refers to our ability to unconsciously find patterns in situations and behaviours based on very narrow slices of experience. It’s how the experts had the immediate reaction they did to the fake statue.
In another example, Gladwell describes the work of psychologist John Gottman who describes the four horsemen of relationships as defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism and contempt, with contempt being the most notable. He and his team trained to observe signs of these horsemen in minute interactions that most would miss the significance of. Many successfully predict signs of trouble in a marriage or impending breakdowns in a relationship.
In Gladwell's style, Blink is rich with references and science. It will leave you feeling both like your gut instincts can easily lead you astray, and that you can sometimes just trust that feeling when you just know you know. Either way, you’ll leave marvelling at all your brain does to make sense of the world around you as best as it knows how.
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell: Available on Amazon.
