swingbeat: 8/26: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Blink is a non-fiction book about "The Power of Thinking Without Thinking". Gladwell starts us off with an example of a fake statue on display at the Getty museum, and how outside art experts who saw it knew immediately it was a fake. There were things of the statue that tipped them off, but they couldn't articulate what they were. The art experts used their unconscious mind to "thin slice" the experience - they made a snap judgement and came out right.
When I started reading, I thought that the book would be just about how we can throw facts and analysis out the door, and just go with our guts, but that's not what the book is about. He gives examples of when snap judgements did well, and when they failed miserably (i.e. Warren Harding's presidency). The book is pretty entertaining and easy to read. As a reporter, Gladwell has an easy-going writing style, telling stories, and getting the heart of various human-interest features. Each chapter tackles a particular theme of the unconscious mind and how we use it to make decisions.
He spends a couple of chapters on snap decisions and the unconscious mind, with examples of good snap judgements people have made. Then he spends a chapter on bad judgements (the chapter is called "The Warren Harding Error") and why they occur. The next chapter is on sponteneity and improvisation - and how too much information (analysis) at the wrong time can cause misjudgements. The next chapter is on market studies and how they are often wrong (e.g. If Pepsi is better than Classic Coke, why didn't they win the market? If new Coke is better than Pepsi, why did it fail miserably and get deshelved? It's in this chapter). This chapter is probably stuff that you MBA-types would know about (or maybe not?).
The final (non-conclusion) chapter is on the art of mind-reading, and he goes into the research of a couple of psychologists who have numbered and mastered many permutations that our facial muscles can get into. He talks about the prejudices that our unconscious minds make, and he also cites many interesting facts/studies.
The last two chapters were the most interesting, I think. The beginning was kinda fluffy, but it got better.
I recommend this book, with the caveat that some of it should be taken with a grain of salt :).
When I started reading, I thought that the book would be just about how we can throw facts and analysis out the door, and just go with our guts, but that's not what the book is about. He gives examples of when snap judgements did well, and when they failed miserably (i.e. Warren Harding's presidency). The book is pretty entertaining and easy to read. As a reporter, Gladwell has an easy-going writing style, telling stories, and getting the heart of various human-interest features. Each chapter tackles a particular theme of the unconscious mind and how we use it to make decisions.
He spends a couple of chapters on snap decisions and the unconscious mind, with examples of good snap judgements people have made. Then he spends a chapter on bad judgements (the chapter is called "The Warren Harding Error") and why they occur. The next chapter is on sponteneity and improvisation - and how too much information (analysis) at the wrong time can cause misjudgements. The next chapter is on market studies and how they are often wrong (e.g. If Pepsi is better than Classic Coke, why didn't they win the market? If new Coke is better than Pepsi, why did it fail miserably and get deshelved? It's in this chapter). This chapter is probably stuff that you MBA-types would know about (or maybe not?).
The final (non-conclusion) chapter is on the art of mind-reading, and he goes into the research of a couple of psychologists who have numbered and mastered many permutations that our facial muscles can get into. He talks about the prejudices that our unconscious minds make, and he also cites many interesting facts/studies.
The last two chapters were the most interesting, I think. The beginning was kinda fluffy, but it got better.
I recommend this book, with the caveat that some of it should be taken with a grain of salt :).
posted by Jay at 3:12 AM
2 Comments:
I loved this book. One of my favorite take-aways is that we are not at the mercy of our minds - we can train ourselves to NOT make snap judgments. After all, these snap judgments are based partly (perhaps largely) on years of being conditioned by what our society tells us to think.
BTW, I love LOVE LOVE Malcolm Gladwell, and was ecstatic to find that an archive of his New Yorker articles can be found online!!!
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