As marketers, we should seek to understand how people perceive things and so it's important to discuss Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink. The book is centered around "snap judgments", judgments that are based on our stereotypes or preconceived ideas. Malcolm Gladwell convinces us with great examples that decisions made quickly can be as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.
The book uses examples of psychologists with a small amount of information and data to explain a better estimate of quality through snap judgments of significant authentic relics over copies to marriages that end in divorce over those that stay together. Gladwell suggests that in some cases education is not more important than understanding. For example, in the marriage analysis you only have to listen to a few characters to pick out an individual’s pattern.
Snap judgments are enormously quick relying on the thinnest slices of experience but they are also unconscious. The experiences and tests in the book suggest that what we think is free will is largely an illusion, that how well we think and act on the spur of the moment are a lot more susceptible to outside influences than we realize.
Marketers will find this information particularly useful. Gladwell tells a story about Ted Williams, the famous baseball star known for his hitting, who confidently suggested that he can look a ball onto a bat. But there is scientific evidence that this isn’t possible because it’s a three millisecond event. Ted was confronted about the evidence and honestly admitted, “Well, I guess it just seemed like I could do that.” Ted Williams, one of the best hitters ever could confidently explain but his actions didn’t match the explanation. This theory was defended in many different situations. Gladwell concludes,”We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We’re a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we really don’t have an explanation for.”
Sometimes we make snap judgments that are more correct than we could after months of study. But there are also times when rapid cognition goes the other way.
A few key points:
First, Malcolm suggests “the key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.” What a HUGE truth this is. I know I can apply this personally to my life. I believe the Bible also backs this thought up in Ecclesiastes 12: 12-13, "Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." In other words, God is suggesting that making education the focus over simply abiding in Him and looking to understand Him is an unneeded and never-ending weariness.
Second, Gladwell confronts our true ability to think without stereotypes. For example, Gladwell asks “how much of the ‘information’ in an audition is visual? Seventy or eighty percent? It’s mostly visual. An audition is supposed to be an exercise in listening.”
This book is a great call to action for justice without regard for race, creed, or any other potential stereotype that we may form. Rather than working to educate people about discrimination through affirmative action programs, awareness for gender bias, or teaching females to be more assertive in making cases for their own ability, Gladwell asks that we take a different approach. Let’s face it, you can’t go up to a classical composer and tell him that the reason he isn’t hiring women is that he is in the grip of some powerful, buried biases against women. Before, in this situation there would have been a long discussion about social discrimination. Our suggestions for change would be global and long-term. Most likely the only change that would really occur would be a younger, hopefully more open-minded composer would rise up in the future.
It encourages us to face our own stereotypes that are held deep within and work for practical problem solving. “Nationwide, the rate of drug admissions to state prison for black men is thirteen times greater than the rate for white men…In Illinois, the state with the highest black male drug offender admissions to prison, a black man is 57 times more likely to be sent to prison on drug charges than a white man.”
The crazy thing is that Gladwell suggests (and I agree) that the majority of people don’t intend to discriminate against others. But they do because we are subject to the biases that we carry in our brains that affect our behavior as much as opinions that we hold. Justice is SUPPOSED to be blind. It isn’t.
Rather than fixate on the person making the snap decision, we should examine the context-the unconscious circumstances-in which the snap decision was being made.
Blink is a great eye-opener and a must read. It will revolutionize they way you understand yourself and others and make proactive steps toward solving injustices in your own heart as well as being primed for those circumstances around you when justice needs to be served.
Know someone that needs to hear this information, please pass this along. If you need assistance getting leads, prospects, and clients cost effectively, please contact me:
Your confidentiality will not be compromised.
