Blink Book Review Essay

The challenge when working with others to make a decision is that we all have our own methods of coming to a conclusion. The rational decision-making model is comprehensive in the fact that it requires the decision maker to define the problem, identify criteria for making the decision, weight the criteria, develop alternatives, evaluate alternatives and finally select the best alternative (Robbins, S.P., Judge, T.A. 2009). The challenge with utilizing this method is the fact that most of the time in real world situations, facts are either limited or missed, time compression causes an oversight on all potential alternatives and people tend to choose the easier route to make decisions (Robbins, S.P., Judge, T.A., 2009). Intuition is a powerful tool, however it can also lead to quick and potentially bad decisions (Robbins, S.P., Judge, T.A., 2009). I can recall a conversation with a leader about an employee that made an error administering a medication. The manager had not spoken with the employee or

Stereotypes are what people generalize others to be just because their personal characteristics are different from one another. This has been an on-going conflict in our society because of the fact that it privileges certain people to have the more advantages than others when it comes to jobs, education, and who the people are. But the problem that society has when it comes to stereotyping is that they are not seeing the real dangers of what it has been doing too many of these people. Such dangers have led many to believe that based on skin color, race, gender, and other traits, people are potential threats, less privileged, and thought to be just different in general. In the essays “The Myth of a Latin Woman: I Just met a Girls Named Maria” by Judith Cofer and Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space” by Brent Staples, the reader is introduced to the real life experiences of stereotypes and how they impact many of these lives in different ways.

The Notebook is one of my favorite love movies of all time. The reason I love this movie so much is because that main characters Noah and Allie go through so many trials and finally end up together in the end. This movie I feel shows me how strong their love for each other really was and I now feel as if it is meant to be it will always find a way. Looking at the movie as a reference to get a better understanding of how lifespan development works, I realized that most of the trials that Noah and Allie went though were part of stages of development. The theory of stages of development was created by Erik Erikson, he believes that we go though certain stages in our life and if we do not get passed them properly we will end up with

My question is what type of training do people need to help control or gain the ability to make those unconscious and accurate spilt second decisions. Gladwell ends his book by encouraging people to apply the concept of thin slicing and it will improve your ability to make the right decisions.

From a young age, Equality-72521 stands out from his brothers. Not only does he express too much interest in science and discovery, but he’s also taller than most men, which further influences the treatment he receives from others. “Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders… said ‘There is evil in your bones… for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers.’” (Rand 18) This quote depicts Equality-72521 being scolded because of his height. Though he cannot change the way he grows, it is treated as a character defect nonetheless. Despite the unfairness about his treatment, he feels guilty.

Do you understand the true power in your mind? Unconsciously we have an extraordinary capability to analyze problems, eliminate variables and choose the most appropriate solution to the circumstances in which we are. The potential found in the hidden corners of our unconscious, that is according to the author of the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. This author, has shown that snap judgments and first impressions we make on someone are as reasonable as if we had observed a long time, provided we have proven experience in evaluating these situations. We are able to master the ability to reach conclusions faster, able to make snap judgments based on accurate information, and decide to take action. Gladwell introduces the concept

Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred is categorized as science fiction because of the existence of time travel. However, the novel does not center on the schematics of this type of journey. Instead, the novel deals with the relationships forged between a Los Angeles woman from the 20th century, and slaves from the 19th century. Therefore, the mechanism of time travel allows the author a sort of freedom when writing this "slavery narrative" apart from her counterparts. Butler is able to judge the slavery from the point of view of a truly "free" black woman, as opposed to an enslaved one describing memories.

In Malcom Gladwell’s Blink, He uses extended definition along with cause and effect to show the reader that people undervalue their split-second decision making abilities. First, Gladwell sets up the definition of a split second decision by describing how a tennis coach “thin-slices some part of the service motion and – blink! - he just knows.”(Gladwell 49). Gladwell began his argument by explaining what it means to “thin-slice” something, and he relates every example and story thereafter to his definition of a “thin-slice”. This extended definition helps the reader relate the stories back to Gladwell’s main idea and understand his argument. The second rhetorical mode that Gladwell uses to improve his argument is cause and effect. In order to show that people’s subconscious minds are more powerful than they think, Gladwell describes an experiment where subjects are

Snap judgments have been around forever. Whether or not you are aware, millions of thoughts go through your head when you lay your eyes on something for the first time. These small judgments seem unimportant at first, but what if “…our snap judgments could be educated and controlled” (Gladwell 15)?

Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the best selling book Tipping Point, wrote Blink. Before being a staff writer for The New Yorker, he was a business and science reporter for the Washington Post. The connection between the cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology research will change the way you understand every decision you make. The book is about how we sum up all the data that is before us and in a split second make an informed decision-in the blink of an eye. It explains how we think without thinking and how we make choices that we can’t explain. At the beginning of the book Gladwell sets out three purposes of this book. Blink is a book that explains how we make decisions in everyday life, first impressions when meeting someone new or have to make decisions under stress.

“the systematic application of functional rationality to the self to attain certain individual ends”. Such a manager “dispassionately takes stock of himself, treating himself as an object, as a commodity. He analyses his strengths and weaknesses and decides what he needs to change in order to survive and flourish in his organization. And then he systematically undertakes a program to reconstruct his image ...” (p.59) “The continuous uncertainty and ambiguity of managerial hierarchies, exacerbated over time by masked conflict, causes managers to turn towards each other for cues for behaviour. They try to learn from each other and to master the shared assumptions, the complex rules, the normative codes, the underlying institutional logic that governs their world. ... Normally, of course, one learns to master the managerial code in the course of repeated, long-term social interaction with other managers” (p.37-8) “... one makes oneself alert to expediency by projecting outward the objectifying habit of mind learned in the course of self-rationalization. That is, the manager alert to expediency learns to appraise all situations and all other people as he comes to see himself - as an object, a commodity, something to be scrutinized, rearranged, tinkered with, packaged, advertised, promoted, and sold.” (p.119)

Theory X was labeled by McGregor as being a “hard” style of management, where hard meant that management would have close supervision on its workers, as well as having strong control and coercion. He determined that a hard style would not be effective for production and organization that practiced this style would have restricted output and workers would distrust management, therefore there would be a need for a softer side of management. McGregor based his evaluation of Theory X manager’s on Abrahams Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory (Barnett).

In the early sections of “Looking Up and Looking Around” Jackall seeks to explain the reasons behind inadequate decision making processes and ability. The circumstances and environments that cultivate ‘decision-making paralysis’ and a lack of individual decision making ability are explained. Numerous examples and reasons are outlined to communicate a manager’s fear of failure, reluctance to make decisions and inability to make effective decisions when required at all hierarchical levels. If a decision must be made, particularly for an unexpected situation or problem, there is a tendency to look up, at

Perhaps one of the most important points made by Gladwell in this book is that neither analytical nor intuitive thinking is good or bad. But under chaotic conditions, the lesser the information available, the better because information overload can delay decisions, and under pressure, delayed decisions are worse than bad decisions. Gladwell illustrates this with an astonishing example of an experiment where sales of a jam shop were as high as thirty percent more when they had only six types of jam than when they had twenty four.

The focus of my term paper is the decision making process used by today's top-level managers. Top-level managers, such as Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Chief Operations Officers (COOs), and Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), must make critical decisions on a daily basis. Their choices and the resulting outcomes affect the company, the employees, and the stakeholders. Due to the high importance of their decisions, the process they use to reach them merits a close examination.