Malcolm Gladwell Reflection

Upon reviewing the reading choices for this assignment, I came across Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell which immediately struck me as a nice book. After reading the description, I felt as though I would agree with the overall message that Gladwell is relaying and that it would relate to real life situations the best. I found that my first impression and feelings towards this book are some of the key items that Gladwell presents as evidence to support his message. From the examples and stories given to the key concepts and definitions, his points in this book are both relevant and relatable to the business world. Three points in this novel especially made me think and connect back to day to day business encounters

He states “Snap judgements are, first of all, enormously quick; they all rely on the thinnest slices of experience,” (pg 50). He talks about a former tennis player, Vic Braden, who could identify if a player was going to fault serve or not and his accuracy of the calls were very precise. Gladwell notes that due to the fact that Braden was a tennis player and also a tennis coach for majority of his life, he was familiar with the tennis serves and before he could even put his finger on what was happening, his subconscious was using the “slices of experience” to trigger his reactions. The examples of the kouros and the gambling game was also referenced and connected because the art historians and the gamblers in the experiment all had an extensive past with the items in question so their subconscious reflected and triggered a reaction. Gladwell’s point is an important one in day to day life as well in the career

Gladwell connects this to three mistakes that the officers made which all relate to rapid cognition or judgements. “Every waking minute that we are in the presence of someone, we come up with a constant stream of predictions and inferences about what that person is thinking and feeling. When someone says ‘I love you,’ we look into that person’s eyes to judge his or her sincerity,” (pg 194). Reflecting on this statement, I think that Gladwell is correct in including this and discussing this in his book. It is true that we are constantly judging people and trying to infer what people are thinking of us at the same time. I have experienced this first hand in my career. While talking to customers, coworkers and my boss, I am constantly reading their expressions and trying to see how they are judging what I am saying at the same time as I am judging what they say or do. It is not meant in any harsh or rude sense, but just as what Gladwell says, that is just how we humans