Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Blink is another thought-provoking book by Malcolm Gladwell that examines the power of our subconscious minds to make quick and accurate judgments. Gladwell argues that sometimes, our intuitive decisions are more reliable than those based on deliberate thought. Key themes and concepts: The power of intuition: The book explores how our subconscious minds can process information rapidly and make accurate judgments without conscious deliberation. The dangers of overthinking: Gladwell argues that excessive analysis can sometimes lead to poor decision-making. The importance of context: The book emphasizes the role of context in shaping our intuitive judgments. Examples explored in the book: The ability of experts to make quick and accurate judgments based on a brief glance The role of intuition in interpersonal relationships The challenges of making decisions based solely on conscious thought Why this book is important: Understanding decision-making: Blink provides valuable insights into the complex ways in which our minds make decisions. Practical applications: The concepts presented in the book can be applied to various fields, including business, leadership, and personal relationships. Engaging storytelling: Gladwell's writing style is engaging and accessible, making complex ideas easy to understand. If you're interested in learning more about the power of the subconscious mind and the art of decision-making, Blink is a fascinating read.

I bought this on the recommendation of a friend, but i'm a little shocked to see such criticism of Gladwell's work in the reviews on Amazon. In my opinion, Gladwell writes exceedingly well and puts across his points with entertaining and interesting examples. At 250 pages, it doesn't drag on too much. It confronts you with the main points, and the examples, and then moves the narrative along. I do understand some of the criticism leveled at this book though: it seems to switch between telling you that leveraging your intuition MORE is going to leave you better off, then progresses onto examples where doing exactly that is worse! As a researcher with some knowledge of half or more of these concepts already, I do think Gladwell could have done a far better job of bringing together the points he was making and offering some practical, grounded advice. Even if that was, as it would have likely been, a middle-ground approach - where intuitive and rational thinking need to be balanced and weighted differently depending on the context - it would have been nice to at least have some part of this work that brought it all together. Despite these criticisms, i'd still recommend this to friends or family as it's a short read which offers interesting stories and grounding in academic literature.

A well-organized research paper on an interesting subject. When that subject of ‘blink’ - the ability to see through the task at hand and know what to do, to know if it is right to do it - is expounded, understood and executed, we would have a glorious successful and carefree life. But is it? This is where the stories and examples that the author has used in the book determines to explain that. Excellent research!

I'm glad it's not just me! I'm 80% through it on my Kindle and have been for over a week now. I just want it to reach a conclusion, or make the point it sets out to do. Although, I think it made that point in the first chapter and now I feel like I'm just reading anecdote after anecdote to back up that point. I really wanted to love this book. I use my gut to make the majority of my decisions at home and at work. I'm not a data driven person at all and when someone recommended this book to me saying it was amazing and would help me make sense of my decision making process I couldn't wait to get started. Now I just want it to end. I need to finish it so that I can rest happily that I didn't miss anything, but my gut instinct tells me that I won't. It gets off to a good start but never seems to quite deliver on it's promise and doesn't seem to progress or build particularly. Maybe there's some huge revelation waiting for in the last few pages. We'll have to wait and see. This is not a pleasant read though. When I read books like this I like to feel like I'm learning something, that isn't the case so far and if it is saving something for the end, that's just a little bit late in the day for me.

Read it in a blink of an eye. The implications are mind blowing. Don't think about buying it, go with your guts.

I was avoiding this book for a long time, as I felt it was just a normal run-off-the-mill book on making gut choices. But the penguin reissue, and bargain amazon price (its half-price at amazon!) made me buy it. I read the book within a week, and was a little happier for the experience. Essentially the book explores the decision making processes we use, and how we are able to somehow determine the right option at a subconcious/gut level. Examples are given througout, and these really help underline the point being made. There is something interesting at play too - the author also wrote The Tipping Point. Within the book is a chapter around (not dedicated to though) a singer. I couldn't help feel tha there was a tongue-in-cheek attempt at gathering tipping point momentum for the singer, based on explanations of record companies gut-reactions to his signing etc. That aside, its worth it at this price, and being a fan of great typography, the Penguin Classics are a great example of how to sell and present a book. Concentrate on the readability and price! Well worth a few days of your time.

A fascinating book that is very easy to read. Written in anecdotal style, Gladwell illustrates his points simply without academic jargon, the very first Chapter which is only 5 pages long has you gripped. Spotting which relationships will fail, wanting something so badly that you make the decision fit your desire, unconscious bias … and so on. I have given this book as a gift several times.

I find the way the human brain works an endlessly fascinating subject so I enjoy reading books like this. The author looks at the way people make up their minds in an instant about something. Those first impressions may not always be right but in many cases they are and they can go against all logic and reason and even against scientific evidence. I think the most striking example he uses is the first one in the book. The statue which science said was genuinely old but many expects saw it and immediately knew it to be a fake and were eventually proved right. How did they know? The author analyses many such startling examples including fire men who got their men out of a burning building just before the floor collapsed even though there was nothing that was telling them consciously that things were dangerous. If you read many books like this you do start to recognise these incidents in use to demonstrate many aspects of the functioning of the human brain. I found the example of the maverick who outwitted large forces in war games by thinking laterally and well outside the box of particular interest - even though I find war abhorrent - as the same principles can be applied to management. Following tried and tested procedures isn't always the best way to deal with unusual situations. This is a popular science book but it has plenty of notes on the text and an index and it is written in an easy and accessible style. If you want an academic version of the same subject then I recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow

Bel libro, interessante. Aiuta a capire come funziona la prima impressione. Lo consiglio a chiunque sia interessato ai meccanismi del cervello!

Love it

Malcolm Gladwell explores how we make decisions, especially snap decisions and comes to some very interesting and profound conclusions. As an analytical sort of person I tend to rely on gathering as much information as possible before making a decision, and then still taking my time about it. The book shows that sometimes we can have too much information and that sometimes the snap judgements, aided by extensive experience, can be more accurate. Gladwell also looks at how instinctive judgements can be badly lead, the causes for these and the sort of unwanted results, even tragedies, this can lead to. His conclusion sets out ways we can overcome biases caused by these conditioned judgements. This all done in Gladwell’s incredibly engaging style of wonderfully spun true stories that illustrate something profound. Even if you learn nothing from the book, it’s worth reading it just the cases and stories and how he tells them. All in all, it’s wonderfully enthralling and thought-provoking reading.

If you wanted to sum up Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink", I would tell you to see the very first "Star Wars" movie. Remember in 1977 when Luke Skywalker while piloting his fighter hears Obi-Wan Kenobi tell him to turn off his radar while attacking the evil star ship? Obi-Wan wants Luke to rely on the FORCE. In other words, give up his conscious thought patterns and go with your gut. This is what BLINK is all about. Our ability to instantly know what is real from what is fiction. What is good from what is bad? Gladwell is telling us to go with our right (creative) brain, and for the moment to shut down our left (logical, analytical) brain, and oh he is so right. In example after example, the author goes through diverse instances where people in just the time it takes to BLINK, can make FABULOUS decisions that turn out to be the right ones. Others using the power of their analytical minds can take days, weeks, and even months, and come to the wrong decision. There's something going on here, and Gladwell is onto it. Human beings have five million years of evolutionary history behind us, and consciousness for only the last 15,000 or 20,000 years. Somehow, we have TURNED OFF the power of our unconscious instinctual patterns, and overridden them with our super analytical ways of logic. The result is inferior decisions to what we had before we became conscious. Hey, when a lion was chasing down our ancestors for a meal, you didn't have much time to think. By the way, every page of this relatively short book is fascinating. You will literally not be able to put it down. Let's look at a few of the topics that Gladwell covers in depth and convincingly. A) The J. Paul Getty Museum & the Kouros Statue The cash-flushed Getty Museum wanted to buy a 7-foot Greek statue for $10 million. With contract in hand they call in some of the greatest experts in the world who after running exhaustive scientific tests, agree that it's the real thing and you should jump to buy it. At the same time a handful of other experts just looking at the object instantly announce it's a fake, and you should walk away. Learn who was right and why. Hint: it took 2 seconds of looking to KNOW the answer. B) Who's a good Professor in less than 30 seconds Remember when we went to college we would attend a lecture or two to determine if we wanted to take the entire course with a certain professor. In BLINK you will see scientific studies that prove you can come to the same decision by watching a video of the professor for 30 seconds. Who's kidding whom? C) What if you could tell how long a potential marriage would last? This one is mind blowing. John Gottman of the University of Washington has shown in tests that he can do this with accuracy. Watching one hour of a couple talking, and Gottman can tell with 95% accuracy if 15 years later, they will still be married. Blink goes into it in detail. Too bad, I didn't learn about this study sooner. D) Why do some doctors get sued, and others not at all? You would think that the risk of being sued if you are a doctor is all about making mistakes, or improper medical care. BLINK shows that its really about words like "RUSHED, IGNORED, and TREATED POORLY." E) Can a President of the United States be elected on looks alone? Read BLINK and you will see how an entire nation got suckered into electing Warren Warding President just for that reason, unbelievable but true. Read how and why, and be mesmerized. F) Only 14.5% of men are six feet and over. Why are 58% of CEO's six feet, or taller? Pretty wild when you think about it, yet true. Could there be some kind of unwritten or unconscious criteria for being a Fortune 500 CEO that involves height? There aren't enough tall people to COMPLETELY staff any one company. Why is it that the tall ones seem to rise to the TOP? G) Blue Team versus Red Team This is my personal favorite. The American military runs war games all the time. The good guys who are us are always the BLUE Team. The enemy is always the RED team. In preparation for the first Iraq war in the early 1990's, the government ran the exercise, and put General Paul Van Riper in charge of the bad guys, the RED team. The bottom line is that the bad guys blew away the good guys, the Americans by using unconventional "BLINK" type thinking, while the BLUE Team relied on conventional, overwhelming force, and inside the Beltway type bureaucratic thinking. This illustrates why this book is so important. You will learn out of the box type thinking. You will also learn when to use it, and when to go with your logical left brain type thinking. By the way in the war exercise when the bad guys, the RED Team beat the good guys the BLUE Team with ease, what did the Pentagon do? They announced that the game would be done over again, and they outlawed the techniques that the bad guys the RED Team employed. The result, the good guys won. The problem is that nobody told the bad guys in Iraq during the second Iraq War that these techniques were outlawed, and thus our Generals as usual find themselves in some difficulty to say the least. Read BLINK, and find out how and why. This book is FASCINATING, and NOT TO BE PUT DOWN, ONCE YOU START READING IT. Richard Stoyeck

Great book and it arrived in great conditions