This review is a part of an exercise on building our personal brand led by Suba Lakshminarasimhan, Founder, SLN Brand Studio LLP, and LeanIn Personal Branding Group.
Verdict: Recommend Read
As a Conference Producer, I have acquired more speakers for my conference sessions intuitively than rationally. When these experts went on stage, either as panelists or presenters, they were almost always perfect for the topic I would identify them for. I would look at their biography or occasionally read an interview or two and instinctively know which session they need to be part of. How did I know that? Malcolm Gladwell offers answers.
Blink is a wonderful reaffirmation for people like me, the intuitive doers, who mostly take a leap of faith and trust that gut instinct everytime a decision has to be made. I have made decisions to move countries and switch jobs in a blink. 3 years ago, I impulsively decided to skydive. I cursed myself to no end as soon as that plane took off (I have motion sickness and fear of heights), and in fact did throw up as soon as I landed; but I am glad I did it.
In Blink, Malcom Gladwell shares multiple examples where experts have succeed by doing something intuitively and have sometimes have failed in spite of extensive study. The Getty and Kouros story is a wonderful example of this. How do we think without actually thinking? Blink talks about the power of our subconscious mind that controls so many of our actions and filters our lives on a daily basis.
“In good decision making, frugality matters. Snap judgements can be made in a snap because they are frugal, and if we want to protect our snap judgements, we have to take steps to protect that frugality.”
– MALCOLM GLADWELL
For the purpose of our exercise, I volunteered to review Chapter 4 of the book: Paul van Riper’s Big Victory: Creating Structure for Spontaneity and boy am I glad I chose this chapter. It talks about the veteran US Marine Paul van Riper’s military career, and delves deeper into the Millennium Challenge. As someone intrigued by politics and defence, this chapter was quite an experience. My key learning from this chapter? Experience triumphs everything.
When Paul van Riper lead Team Red against the technologically and financially powerful Team Blue, he banked on his experience of the Vietnam War and lead the troops and the exercise in that way. He was extremely frugal in his decision making process, keeping meetings short and to-the-point, thereby, eliminating unwanted information from coming in, and trusting his troops to make decisions in the situations they were in; unlike Team Blue that was incessantly following protocols and constantly reporting back information and waiting for a command. This chapter was extremely interesting because the Millennium Challenge was more than a joint forces exercise. It was an extremely expensive and cumbersome trial run for an actual situation.
Businesses expect rationality and strong evidence behind every decision made. In a way, corporate culture does function like Team Blue where step-by-step and concrete communication = accountability. Yet many leaders, in business and otherwise, make decisions intuitively. I strongly believe, women use their gut instinct a lot more than men, and hence, are increasingly being recognised as highly emotionally intelligent and competent leaders.
Blink offers you a glimpse into the unknown world of our subconscious mind and the concept of thin-slicing. It talks about unconscious biases and auto processes that dictate every aspect of our lives. I highly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in learning more about behavioural science and improving their leadership skills.
I am very grateful to Suba for choosing this book for our activity, and the lovely women at LeanIn Personal Branding Group for their continuous love and support.
The Journey to Everywhere 