This is a re-post regarding Eiger Dreams and Entrepreneurship. In that post, I discussed an article that talked about entrepreneurship as a disease. You don’t get to choose to be an entrepreneur – it chooses you. I also talked about how a decision made with less information can sometimes be more beneficial than a decision made with a plethora of information. I’m excited to say that I’m reading a book that actually backs this theory up. The book is called Blink and the author is Malcolm Gladwell. If you don’t know by now, he is one of favorite authors.
The book discusses a person’s unconscious thinking; the kind of thinking that takes place without one’s knowing. Gladwell uses a great example. Imagine you’re crossing the road and a truck is about to hit you. You don’t have time to process all the information concerning the situation. In fact, you don’t even have time to think. You make an action before you even know what happened. That’s because you’re brain quickly did numerous calculations and told you to move without you even knowing. That situation is a little bit extreme. Gladwell talks about another experiment where students judge teachers by watching a silent video clip. You can read more about that one in my previous post.
Bottom line – we all make decisions everyday that is completely unknown to us. It is possible to harness this knowledge into something useful. You can use it to listen for key indicators, or use it to improve your interviewing. After all, a handshake says a lot about someone.
I remember reading an article about psychological biases and how it can flaw our decision making abilities. Actually, I once heard a professor state that the best managers will turn to their organization and consider their own thoughts when making important decisions.
ReplyDeleteThere may be times when a situation calls for an immediate decision, and there may not be time to consider others' input. That is when a good manager will have to put their biases aside and make sound choices based on collective believes which are in the best interest of the organization.
However, this takes practice. Biases are created on a lifetime of beliefs and experiences. One cannot undo those beliefs in a few days or even a few weeks. It takes a lot of practice and this type of practice consists of learning to look at situations from others' perspective.
The more you practice doing this, the more natural it becomes. Afterall, we all have biases that impact our everyday decision making.
Luke,
ReplyDeleteI've read Blink, The Tipping Point, and Outliers so I was glad to see your post and took a chance to see the author has created a new book since my last encounter with the author's work on Amazon.
One of the side things that comes out of the idea behind blink and outliers is how you build a model in your head. It works for great analysis after the fact, but also the idea of building the model into your own head can be done. It's one of the reasons hokey skits where businesses make you run through scenarios like the irate customer or unethical request do so well. You can immediately pull the model of what you did before and just mimic it. Sure, it's not flawless, but it beats doing it on the spot without any model in your head. After a while the skit becomes who you are and how you act.
It can be an effective tool to remove many of the bad habits and biases one builds up over time. My dad is 72, so he has well ingrained thoughts which aren't workable in today's business environment. I had to unlearn some of the ideas he gave me growing up.