Book Review: Blink

We’ve all suffered the consequences of poor decision-making, and celebrated when we’ve made a judgment that led to a positive outcome.  I’d like to enjoy more of these favorable results, so I eagerly picked up Malcom Gladwell’s Blink:  The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, which promises to show “how we can all become better decision makers”.  I really appreciated Gladwell’s The Tipping Point:  How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference which explained how three distinct personality types can help spread the acceptance of an idea, trend or product.  Based on the cohesive thesis in this first book, I had high hopes that Blink would do the same in the realm of decision-making; unfortunately, it didn’t completely deliver.

Blink contains a large collection of anecdotes and studies; the vignettes are certainly interesting.  The first chapter focuses on a purchase of purported ancient Greek kouros purchased by the Getty Museum .  The museum commissioned many studies to analyze the style and material of the statue.  The results of these studies overruled the “feelings” that several art experts expressed, that something was off.  Enough questions were raised that today the statue is labeled “about 530 BC, or modern forgery.” 

If we are able to extract a central theme to the book, it might be that gathering a large amount of data before making a decision is not as crucial as gathering the few essential points of important data.  But … Gladwell doesn’t show us to distinguish between crucial and extraneous data.

There are thorough footnotes for each chapter, and an index to all names and topics mentioned.  The later paperback editions of Blink include a 20-page afterword in which Gladwell distills the lessons learned in each chapter; bringing a semblance of much needed cohesion to the book.  Overall, a good and interesting read, but not one to lead us to make better decisions. 

(note:  our neighborhood book group chose to read Blink.  We all agreed that there were many interesting anecdotal stories about instinctive decision-making, but that we weren’t shown the tools to hone this skill ourselves.  Several of us explored the Implicit Association Test described in the book and found online here.  Give it a try, you might be surprised at your results!