Blink!

Blink

Malcolm Gladwell started off as a journalist and published his first book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, in the year 2000. It was a hit and made Gladwell a popular lecturer. In 2005, he published his second book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. This book really caught my eye and from cover to cover, it was a really easy, informational read.

The title says it all. This is a book about a collection of studies done over a period of two years and is basically about first impressions, intuition, and underlying keys that can all be decoded with amazing accuracy. The key is deciding what information to hold on to, and what information to get rid of. Gladwell discusses “thin-slicing”, or rapid cognition, which is the focus of his book. Thin-slicing is the ability to decide what is really important on the spot, and how decisions that are made in the blink of an eye can be just as good as well thought out ones. He tells many stories about his experiences, other people’s experiences, and studies done about “thin-slicing”.

The way Gladwell writes is intriguing. He tells stories in pieces, so that the reader has to keep reading to find out what happens. At the end of each story he comes to a conclusion as to why thin-slicing did or didn’t work and the accuracy of the method used or the study done. I learned so much about the power of decision-making and what you can tell about a person or situation in the blink of an eye. In this book, Gladwell describes how a coach can tell if an athlete will double-fault before they even walk on the court, how artists can pick out an identical fake without any information about the piece, and how long a relationship will last with only three minutes of observations and amazing accuracy.

There is an explanation for why everything in the corporate world is the way it is, or why military personnel can discover where in the world certain hidden bases are, or what to signs to realize in something as serious as an intimate relationship, or as common as a business relation with your local car dealership. Facial expressions, speech recognition and even our unknown unconscious bias play a part in every decision we make, whether it’s hasty or not. This book was a quick and informational read. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in psychology or just a curiosity about understanding how the world works a little better. Right or wrong, there is a key to why things are the way they are, and in Blink, Malcolm Gladwell reveals all the secrets. I look forward to reading more of his books.