my daily mirror

Would you “Blink” :-) ?

July 9, 2009 at 02:06 (Uncategorized)

Scenario 1 : I had just met one of my friends for the first time at the cafeteria . It was an acquaintance on that day, which turned into friendship later. She was with her boy friend and it was again a few days and meetings later that I realized they were a pair . What was a pretty innocuous meeting apparently , turned out to stand in my memory for at least one flip thought that crossed my mind. In about a few seconds that I saw them together , my mind somewhere said if they were a pair ,they were not meant for each other and that undefined yet unmistakable zing was missing in them . A blink judgement with no material or circumstantial evidence to reinforce it, nevertheless one that stood in my mind. Call it instinct , incorrigible habit of getting judgemental or a snap observation, it happens with all of us at some time or other.

Scenario 2 : I was visiting a music shop to pick something for my listening. I had gotten bored with the trimmed and barely musical MP3 musics and wanted to listen something which was classical Audio ( the cda s and midi s). I wanted to buy myself a collection of the 80s popular swinging Hindi numbers , and was going past the Western Instrumental gallery up to the Indian section. That was when I caught a glimpse of a CD Album named “Golden Flute ” by Adrian Brett. I scanned around every corner of the shoppy and finally almost like an insect drawn towards light with a sense of inevitability , picked up Adrian’s CD and put it on the counter for billing. Till today I enjoy listening to this metallic flute in my long moments of solitude.
Another case of blink decision without any preparation whatsoever, that meets the normal eye.

Scenario 3 : The moment I caught the first promos of a supposed to be blockbuster Hindi Movie ” Chandni Chowk to China ” ,
I knew it would be a box office dud. I am sure the critic’s band would ridicule me for being judgemental to the extent that a
single promo was good enough for me to trash the whole volume of work , but that’s the way lot of things work in life. It sometimes just takes a few seconds , or even a blink for you to know whether something or someone would tick.

If you have read this far and wondering , being judgemental is no great art or even science and that it is more of a vice than a virtue of the human mind , I’ll request you to hold on for few minutes.

In between the three instances where my flip observations and judgements turned out to be correct on at least two occasions ( the first one remains debatable )  , there have been plenty of occasions where my ( and I believe yours as well ) instinct driven decisions have gone awry.

Malcolm Gladwell ( a best selling author ) in his book titled “Blink”, puts forward a new concept called “thin slicing” . The author describes “thin-slicing” as our ability to gauge what is really important from a very narrow period of experience. In other words, he means spontaneous decisions are often as good as—or even better than—carefully planned and considered ones.

Gladwell also mentions that sometimes having too much information can interfere with the accuracy of a judgment. The challenge is to identify and focus on only the most significant information. The other information could be just noise and can confuse the decision maker. Collecting more and more information, in most cases, just reinforces our judgment but does not help to make it more accurate. He explains that better judgments can be executed from simplicity and frugality of information, rather than the more common belief that greater information about an event or occurence is proportional to an improved decision.

A lot of these instinctive decisions are soft coded in our genes and have evolved in the subconscious through generations. The sixth sense is nothing but an extension of the primitive man’s ever alert mind to react to an impending danger , which in those ages were in every other step. Even though we do not live in a Jungle or dwell in caves now , a lot of times this sixth sense of yours comes in handy . Sitting in a busy pub or restaurent , your sixth sense tells you if someone has been prying or gazing at you ( I know gals would agree more than the guys ) . Similarly , walking down an isolated road in the night , you know without looking back if ever there was someone stalking you. 
What we call as “Gut Feeling ” or “hunch” is again our subconscious computer’s silent analysis of a given set of limited information, in reaching a quick conclusion. A lot of times the conscious mind is unaware or completely oblivious of this analysis that goes on deep inside. Its kind of “thinking without thinking “

There are plenty of reasons why such snap decisions may go wrong , and the major one being an inherent chance of a system failing as is the case with any system. Every computer in this world, has in it a miniscule probability or chance of failing , so why not our brain .
However, the second most probable reason of a “blink” decision going wrong is prejudice. Prejudice or any preconceived opinion either favourable or unfavourable, can mask our ability to make snap decisions correctly. Let us take a quick real life case :

A recruiter in one of the reputed IT firm, shared with me how she was fooled into forming opinions about possible candidates and how they would fare, when they appeared for interview in her company .She used to conduct initial screening of candidates and shortlist prospective good ones for subsequent rounds of interview. This lady , over a set of events and past experience got prejudiced into thinking that most of the times people who are prospective right candidates turn up in best dress , neatly combed hair,  trimmed and shaven cleanly and have a ready smile to offer at the first possible interaction. According to her such candidates more often were good communicators and went on to make for successful hires. This was until the day she met someone who presented himself for a position , no less than a Manager’s . He was neat and clean , yet didn’t have the shine and shin that she associates with prospective good hires. He was approachable and yet reticent in a stark difference to lot of other candidates who speak out in every possible oppurtunity. It was only a chance that she actually took a passing glance at his CV and got the shock of her life. The candidate held all possible meadallions of academic achievment that one can boast of. An alumnus of IIT and holding a MBA from a reputed institution, he has been an extremely successful professional until then.
As it turned out the candidate was sent by her for the next round of interviews and happened to clear them with consummate ease. In fact , she said , her company was more than proud to hire this candidate .
This experience changed her complete approach to how she viewed , opinionated and judged candidates by their first appearances. To this day, she still rues if she has had missed such great hires on the prejudiced pretext of looks over matter.

The reason I quoted the above instance was to validate the fact that, prejudice formed through experience , can mask our ability to make correct snap decisions , in very subtle yet definitive ways.

Does this mean there is no place for deliberated decisions and well thought measures in managing life’s events . There definitely is . But the whole point here is we live in a society dedicated to the idea that we’re always better off gathering as much information and spending as much time as possible in deliberation. As children, this lesson is thrust into us again and again: ” haste makes waste, look before you leap, stop and think “. But I don’t think this is true. There are lots of situations, particularly at times of high pressure and stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions offer a much better means of making sense of the world.
Before concluding my article I wanted to ask my readers few questions
 
When Sachin Tendulkar hits a ball hurled at 100 mph from Brett Lee , does he analyse or ponder for minutes or even seconds on which is the best shot to offer to that ball ?
When Tiger Wood tees to take a shot , does he ever think of calling a board meeting lasting hours to decide the angle of his swing ?
When you had fallen in love for the first time and if it had been the proverbial ” love at first sight” , did it actually take you  hours to reach that state of mind ?

Write in your thoughts on ” blink” or ” snap” decisions and please quote instances when they have either worked or fired back for you  .