Resumo de Blink - Malcolm Gladwell

Blink is a book about snap and quick
judgments and instantaneous choices. It asks the following questions: "Why are some people brilliant
decision-makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow
their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our
brains really work? in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen and the
bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to
explain to others." Decisions, choices, instincts, judgment, winning?
every executive's wheelhouse. Blink is about what executives do
all day, every day: assessing and the better part, deciding.

But Blink decision-making is unfortunately
not the way executives typically make important decisions. Where executives are
painstakingly grounded in facts and disciplined study and analysis, Blink is
about decisions made in an instant that use our "adaptive
unconscious." Adaptive unconscious can be thought as "a kind of giant
computer that quickly and quietly processes a lot of the data we need in order
to keep functioning as human beings."

The Blink decision maker may not even be
able to describe why a given choice was made, beyond stating things like
instincts, feelings, inklings and hunches. Gladwell does not reference
Wayne Gretzky, but he comes to mind to me in reading Blink.
Gretzky always seemed headed to where the puck would be; he hit teammates with
passes when there was no way he could have known where they were, let alone
where they were going. There seemed no human explanation for what he could
routinely do on the ice.

When compared with the sequential decision-making
process, business schools push at executives: Precisely define the problem;
develop options; define goals; analyze the options in light of the goals in
enough depth to develop a short list; analyze the short listed options in great
quantitative and qualitative detail; consider intangibles; make a decision;
execute the decision; do a post-audit to determine how well the process worked;
make adjustments to improve future decision-making. One is really exhausted
just reading the list.

In an organized way, Blink
takes executives through a decision-making process that is miles from what they
learned in business school, but has enormous potential to improve performance
if harnessed properly. This doesn?t mean that executives do not make snap
decisions every day. Of course they do. But how many have given the snap
decision process any thought? It is in these kinds of questions that Blink adds
value to executives.

Gladwell defines three tasks for Blink.
"To convince you of a simple fact: Decisions made very quickly can be
every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately." Second,
to help us understand "when we should trust our instincts and when we
should be wary of them." Third: "to convince you that our snap
judgments and first impressions can be educated and controlled."

According to Gladwell, the key to good
snap decision-making is the ability to almost instantly process huge amounts of
information and focus on what matters. He calls the process "thin
slicing," and specifically defines it as "the ability of our
unconscious to find patterns in situations and behaviour based on very narrow
slices of experience."

The task given for executives in Blink is
to improve snap decision-making. Here Gladwell is quite insightful when he
says this. What is more important is, knowing yourself and your tendencies,
prejudices, reactions and experiences. Try to understand how your initial
impressions are formed, and under what circumstances they are most likely to be
right and wrong. For example, does stress improve or reduce the likelihood for
you of a good snap decision? How about being tired and hungry? How about when
the pressure is great because the stakes are high? How about when you are under
the gun with respect to time? AAlso, do you get better at snap decision-making
the more expert you are?

Blink is about knowing yourself and
controlling yourself. Executives are busy, so when reading for personal
improvement it is all about value. Blink thinking will be useful in
anything an executive does that involves quick judgments. Should I pursue this
acquisition? Should I go after this potential customer? Should I spend time on
this potential supplier? Should I hire this person? On hiring, Gladwell
makes a comment that executives should at least think about: "Forget the
endless 'getting to know' meetings and lunches. If you want to get a good idea
of whether I'd make a good employee, drop by my house one day and take a look
around."

In the beginning, Gladwell
says in Blink, "I think we are innately suspicious of this kind of rapid
cognition. We live in a world that assumes that the quality of a decision is
directly related to the time and effort that went into making it." Would
any executive disagree? I encourage executives to read Blink and
think about it. It will systematically take you through a way of making
decisions that you know but have probably never thought seriously about. It
will give you insights that may improve your decision-making, both snap and the
more analytically driven. In the process you will meet, through Gladwell's
example approach to argument-building, a most amazing cast of characters
including doctors, furniture designers, athletes and murderers. Delightful! Great
stuff! Worth an executive's time.

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