“Blink” A decision-Making Strategy By Bonnie Smith

Have you ever just leaped to a conclusion about something, without thinking through all your options, but just have this innate feeling that your conclusion is right. This is the part of your brain that is called the adaptive unconscious; a decision-making system that is capable of making very quick judgments based on very little information.

In Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking Gladwell suggests management decision-making should be more about intuition, or a gut-feeling, rather than informed, data-driven decision making.

Gladwell examines rapid, almost instantaneous, decision-making, and how those decisions can produce the same results as a decision made after tough analysis. He explores how military commanders, firefighters, doctors, law enforcement officials, and business executives face similar situations in the ability to have to make extremely rapid decisions under conditions of extreme stress, and even for very high stakes.

Blink explains many different theories and studies based on “thin-slicing” or the ability to make sense of something quickly. He gives some very powerful examples such as, the Pepsi challenge, the fake Kouros statue at the Getty, first impressions of people, and many others. This book gives a lot of insight about “blink of the eye” decisions when it comes to business decisions, marketing, as well as everyday decision-making at home or while out meeting new people.

Although this book is a very interesting read, I don’t know if it will help you to become a more wise and thoughtful decision-maker, specifically in the workplace and business arena, but it does get you to think.