Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking

Members: 1.Jayashree K Iyer 2.Nitisha Pagaria 3.Parnamoy Dutta 4.Neha Ramachandran 5. Sabika Naqvi 6. Neha Tyagi

Malcolm Gladwell Bestselling author of the global phenomenon

Malcolm Gladwell

Canadian Journalist by profession and currently residing in New york Awarded the most influential person by TIME magazine in 2005. Launched Blink in the year 2005. Penned other three New york Times bestsellers like Outliers, The Tipping Point, What the Dog saw.

Purpose
To

illustrate why do some people follow their instincts and win? Discards the well-accepted notion of making a decision based upon long term observations & experience. On the spot unconscious decisions based on instinctive thinking is glorified with the help of real life examples.

Introduction
Based

on Psychology and Behavioral Economics. Substantiates the concept of intuitive thinking and decision making with the help of many real life examples such as:

An Art expert sees a ten million dollar sculpture and in a flash realizes that it is fake. A Fire fighter makes a split-second decision to get out of a blazing building just before it collapses. A marriage analyst studies a fifteen-minute video of a couple and accurately predicts whether they will stay together. A speed dater suddenly clicks with the right person.

Interesting examples & Observations

An Art expert sees a ten million dollar sculpture and in a flash realizes that it is fake. Inference: Prompt, unbiased and accurate decision can be taken if one possess relevant expertise. A marriage analyst studies a fifteen-minute video of a couple and accurately predicts whether they will stay together. Inference: All marriages have a distinctive pattern, a kind of marital DNA , that surfaces in meaningful interactions.

Contd One of the worlds top Tennis coaches, Vic Braden realized that he always knew when a player will double-fault. Inference: Snap judgments are enormously quick and they rely on thinnest slices of experience, though with subconscious state of mind. Christian Brothers was losing their Brandys market share to E&J even though the product had the best of taste reason being unattractive packaging. After revising product packaging, the sales of the same product shot up. Inference: Visual appeal plays an important role in making snap judgments.

Literature review

Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious ~ Gerald Gigerenzer Book explains why our intuition is such a powerful decision-making tool. The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less ~ Barry Schwartz Book explains that if you are confronted with too many choices, you either spend a lot of time making the absolute best choice, and then will often still be unhappy since youre not sure that you really made the best choice, or you settle for something thats good enough.

Credibility

The authors area of expertise is scientific and business reporting, which is why, he has been successful in making key observations about sociopsychological implications in business. When asked for the process behind his writing, he said "I have two parallel things I'm interested in. One is, I'm interested in collecting interesting stories, and the other is I'm interested in collecting interesting research. What I'm looking for is cases where they overlap.

Critical Response

Strengths: Easily readable Relevant for budding managers to make accurate decisions in minimum possible time frame. Author has been successful in holding the readers' interest throughout the book by quoting real life instances. Less on theory and more on practical experience based conclusions. Weakness: Too many overlapping examples that results in monotony at times. Ridicules the importance long time experiences all together in making well informed decisions. Blink/Snap judgments can never be a substitute for critical thinking. Making accurate snap judgments seems to be remotely possible for a common man.

Personal Response

Nitisha-makes us conscious about our unconscious decisions. Neha- an unBLINKable read about blink judgements. Jayashree -never thought intuitive decisions can be so accurate. Feeling young to start practicing quick decisions. Sabika-Impressively researched with brilliant use of anecdotes. Neha-Not practical for every scenario since accurate snap judgments are limited to experts. Parnamoy:balanced listening with your eyes for new knowledge.

Quotes
The

key to good decision making is not knowledge, it is understanding. It is the new and different that is always most vulnerable to market research. If we are to learn to improve the quality of the decision we make, we need to accept the mysterious nature of our snap judgments.

BLINK: A Good Read

Thank You!