Shaun Westgate, Managing Director
The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell
This book is really good if you are a believer in your own intuition. Clearly there are a lot of management books that give you the science on how to make carefully planned and considered decisions. This book presents the psychology and behavioural economics on the adaptive unconscious – the mental processes that work rapidly and automatically from relatively little information to the actual moment of instant decision making.
Throughout my business life, I have made some very important business decisions. I have got to be honest and say a lot has been based on my intuition. For example with most people I have employed, I made the decision to do so within the first two minutes of meeting them. I might add I spent the next hour trying to get the candidate to change my mind, but they never did. I always questioned this method of decision-making thinking I should be far more calculating, weighing up all the pro and cons in a more methodical and logical way. But reading this book has given me more confidence to always believe in my own intuition.
It explores the idea of 'thin slicing' our ability to determine what is really important from a small period of experience. The idea that spontaneous decisions are often as good or better than carefully planned and considered ones. The author Gladwell draws on examples from science, advertising, sales, medicine and music to reinforce his ideas. He also outlines how our ability to 'thin slice' can be corrupted by an overload of information.
Gladwell also discusses how, in an age of information overload, experts often make better decisions with snap judgments than they do with volumes of analysis. He also gives a wide range of positive examples of 'thin-slicing' in contexts such as speed dating, tennis, gambling, military war games and to even predicting a divorce.
The Power of Thinking Without Thinking has helped me a great deal, but I am not suggesting for a minute that this is the only management book you should ever read. It certainly puts a lot of management advice into perspective, with its central message focused on the importance of listening to your own intuition.
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