Book Review: Blink, Malcolm Gladwell

The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Another great book by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point.

The Big Idea in this book is that it's possible to know something without knowing why we know. We need to accept this - and sometimes we'’re better off this way. If we all took our instincts seriously we would live in a very different and better world.

Analyzing why we think what we think or know what we know can radically change our thoughts. Often people give extremely different answers to a question when they need to explain or justify their answer - introspection can sabotage solutions.

Our "Adaptive subconscious"” makes these quick decisions for us (it has nothing to do with Freud'’s subconscious, The Oedipus complex, or any other such psycho-mumbojumbo). It throws away most details and concentrates on what it considers to be most important in order to make quick decisions. In general it is remarkable at making great decisions very quickly with very few facts available.

Our subconscious can certainly make errors as well. For example, Warren Harding, perhaps the worst US President ever, "looked" presidential. Everyone thought he would make a great president based on his appearance, but apparently they were extremely wrong! Another example: US CEOs average approximately 3 inches taller than average. There is no link between CEO ability and height, but certainly an ingrained bias that tall men are leaders (or something like that).

This is an engaging book with many well-researched examples, each of which is fascinating in it'’s own right. This was a hard book to read in two days -– I wanted to read it cover to cover. It was so riveting that although I started reading it at night when both mentally and physically exhausted, I seriously considered making coffee when nodding off around midnight so I could continue reading!