Blink: The Antithesis of Strategic Decision-Making

The readings in our last class covered decision-making - from the hidden traps, overconfidence and mental pitfalls that challenge our decision-making abilities to the potential of a devil's advocate to bolster them.

Fresh from these readings, I decided to pick up the book "blink" by Malcolm Gladwell (I think someone may have referenced it briefly at the beginning of the course). A big fan of Gladwell's book The Tipping Point, I had been meaning to read his second best seller. While I haven't quite finished it yet (who has time for personal reading during the semester?!), I recommend the book because it offers a flip side to the idea of strategic decision making. Blink is about the immediate conclusions your mind unconsciously jumps to when you meet someone, watch an ad, interact with others, read a few sentences, etc. The author uses leading neuroscience and psychology research to determine how people make "snap" decisions and how we can use the findings to improve our ability to make better decisions.

One of the interesting observations he makes is about interviewing for jobs and the immediate impressions we make. He wrote that there is significant evidence that shows that height - particularly in men - creates very "positive unconscious associations." He polled nearly half of the companies on the Fortune 500 list to inquire about their CEOs. No one would be surprised to learn that they are overwhelmingly white men; but they are almost all tall. Here's my favorite stat: "In the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or taller. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent." And..."in the general American population, 3.9 percent of adult men are six foot two or taller;" among his sample that number was nearly 33 percent! So much for the Napoleon Complex!

There are other interesting examples of our unconscious reactions dealing with race and gender, as well as customers and the way they dress. From what I've read so far, the book is an interesting read and perfect for summer travel. It's even a good read when you're holding a sleeping five-month-old baby on a puddle-jumper plane, as was my case last weekend! Enjoy!