There's tons of great examples in the book about how "thin-slicing" people and situations can allow us to make the same or even better ideas than "thick-slicing". In one example, people were asked to assess and judge the effectiveness and abilities of a professor based on a 2 second clips of them teaching. This seems ridiculous, but most of the participants in the study, something like 80% of them, were able to assess them close to the professor's actual assessment by the university. In 2 seconds, people were able to tell if the professor's were good or bad at what they do. Why? That's the mystery to book looks into uncovering.
I'm not here to write a review of the book, but it is very good if you are looking for some very interesting information and studies. The idea of this book is more interesting to me.
Everyone at one time or another has come across a time or situation where you just have a feeling about what you should do. Everyone has met someone at one time or another and decided very quickly if you liked this person or not, but then are often left wondering why we felt this way.
We tell kids all the time when taking a test, that their first impression of the answer is probably the correct one. But, we also teach them critical thinking. We teach kids that, when they come across a situation, that they should think it through thoroughly before acting. That seems like the best way to approach anything, really. But the information presented in this book makes me think that its possible that its not... that maybe we should be working and processing more based our instincts and snap judgements. MOST (but not all) of the time, these decisions are just as good or better than the decisions we make when thinking it through and weighing every piece of information. Perhaps we should be teaching kids to hone their instinct and gut judgements. Not that they shouldn't learn all they can to make informed decisions, but that they should take that information they have learned and trust their judgements and instincts.
For example, think about a sport like basketball. I wouldn't expect 14 year old to make the right play and/or decision all the time while playing. In basketball, one has to make lots of decisions and make them in quick succession. It would be difficult for someone young and newer to the game to make the right decision in a split second all the time. BUT, after someone has spent a few years practicing and playing, these decisions come easier and faster. The more you practice and play the game, the more scenarios and situations you have come across. The more your practice and play, the more physically able you are to follow through on your decisions. If you have played, think about a time where you were playing someone one-on-one. I can think of many. One in particular comes to mind.
I was in 8th grade and we were playing another undefeated team. They had a really big kid on their team same Steve Young. He had a damn beard... seriously. He was very big for his age, but that meant I was quicker and faster (being our center, but being only 5'8" and skinny), which was true, but also made me feel better to tell myself. My coach told me to call for an isolation play if he guarded me one-on-one so I could dribble past him for a lay-up. In the last moments of the game it was tied and we had the ball with a chance to win. Our coach had called a play for a screen to get the ball to our best shooter and have him take a shot. I noticed, though, that they were in a man-to-man. I told everyone to change the play and held up the signal for an isolation play for me. I got some questionable looks form my teammates, but I was so confident (for no reason), no one questioned it. I got the ball off the inbounds, everyone cleared out... I took Steve Young on, skinny young man against man-child. I drove him to the free throw line... stopped... pulled up... and launched a shot. I heard my coach yelling, "Nooooooo!", which amazingly turned into more of a "Noooooeeeeyaaaaah!" because I swished the basket at the buzzer. We won!
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| This picture seems to sum up what middle school basketball is like |
I realize that this story may not be as exciting for you, but there's a point. How did I know exactly when to stop and shoot? There was no play or plan. The plan was, take him one-on-one. In that moment, though, I didn't think... I reacted. Thats a normal idea in sports, right? You react. But, how do we know when and how to react best. I had played enough one-on-one at the YMCA and in my backyard and on the playground to know when I had enough space to pull up and take a good shot. As the situation developed, by learned instincts kicked in and I made the play. Even if I had missed, it would still have been a good, open shot. The key words, I think, though, is LEARNED instinct. We train for this in sports all the time. You practice and train your instinct and judgments. Maybe we should spend more time doing this in our everyday lives?
In the book, Gladwell brings up a comparison between military personnel and stock market traders, and it makes complete sense. These traders are making tons of decisions on, what seems like, very little information. They have "hunches" or "feelings" about what to do and when to do it. Thats not to say, though, that they they are guessing. They study trends and analytics all the time. But, when its time to trade, they use their instincts and judgement, trusting that what they have learned and studied will kick in. If they spent all their time trying to think their trades through critically, they would miss everything.
I know I tie in a lot of my ideas to school and education, but its the world I live in.... I think this idea of preparing ourselves better in order to make smarter "snap judgements" or improve our instincts is a very interesting one. What if we took that approach in the education system and when teaching? We told the kids, "Hey, I don't know when you will need this information, but at some point you might. When that time comes, you can trust you know what to do and can trust your judgement and instincts and make a decision. Thats why we are learning all of this. So that when you are out there, in the real world, you can trust yourself to make good decisions based on your initial reactions." Personally, that approach sounds more exciting to me than trying to learn chemistry and ecosystems just because the textbooks says I need to know it. I think it would feel like you are actually training and preparing for something.
There are so many situations I can think of where having the ability to make a good, quick decision, would be so helpful and that overanalyzing makes things worse. If I felt like I was more knowledgeable on a subject, though, I think these situations would be much, much easier.
One example I can think of was when my wife and I were trying to buy a house. We looked at well over 100 houses and looked for months. The market was crazy and the economy had crashed, so cost was low, but our salaries were also frozen indefinitely. It made things a little more complicated, in our minds, to choose. In one house we put an offer on, we were actually under contract for a month before the deal went under. The whole time I remember not having a great feeling about it, but thought I was just nervous abut a house in general. But maybe my instincts were kicking in to tell me it wasn't good. On another house I saw what knowledge and expertise combined with snap judgements and instincts can do. My wife and I liked the house were looking at with our realtor's partner. Our realtor is an amazing dude, but couldn't make it to the house to show it, so his very capable partner came to show it. The layout was good, price was decent, location was nice, etc. We were starting to get desperate to find something, so our judgement was suspect. In the unfinished basement, we noticed two sub-pumps. Whatever...right? We were ready to put an offer down and we called our main realtor to tell him. His partner explained the house and the price and casually mentioned the two sub-pumps in the basement. I remember hearing our realtor on the other line go, "Wait! Two sub-pumps? Hmmm... I don't like that.... I driving up." A 45 minute drive for him later, he burst into the house, said a brief hello, and started sniffing around like a drug dog looking for a hidden stash. He started in the basement, saw the pumps, and grunted...not happy. Then stared at the cement walls int he basement, made more faces and grunts, then headed up stairs. He felt the tops of the doors and then looked like someone who found the remote control in the couch after looking for it for so long. "This house has foundation problems, don't buy it". There were fixed cracks in the foundations concrete. The tops of the doors had been sanded to fit after everything had shifted. The multiple sub-pumps were to deal with regular flooding. All this makes sense... but he drove 45 minutes on a week night, late, based on a casual piece of info about 2 sub-pumps. He knew instantly something was wrong, and he was totally right. His well informed instincts told him this was a bad house. He didn't need time on the phone to talk about what could maybe be wrong. He felt it was wrong and immediately headed put to see us. That ability, though, came from years of experience seeing thousands and thousands of houses. Now, maybe someone off the street might be able to come in and make the same decision based on instinct, but his instinct were informed.
What if we taught kids this way? Learn so you are prepared. Learn so you are ready when you need to be. When they get a to a test, we would tell them to trust their instincts and judgements. Read the questions through, jot down notes or numbers if needed but trust the answer you initially believe is correct. If they paid attention and learned throughout their classes, their instincts should serve them well when testing. If we teach them well, in the real world they should be able to make good decisions faster and more frequently as they will be able to trust their instincts.
I do teach this some in my art class. I tell kids, in order to check their work, have someone hold it up from a distance. But I tell them to close their eyes first, then open them and decide upon first look whats right and whats wrong with the work. Their initial judgements should help them in creating better work. I teach this as almost a trick, but now I am thinking I need to teach it as a real and useful tool. There's this big emphasis on art critiques and the steps one needs to take when critiquing a work of art. I get why and I think the thinking behind it is valuable, but maybe instead of teaching it to be repeated, I should really be teaching it so they don't have to do it anymore and tell them that. "If we can get good at this is as a class using the formal critique steps, then we can et rid of the steps and the writing and have conversations based on how you feel about the work." Doesn't that sound like a more fun way to live, anyway?
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