Thinking Without Thinking: The Best Decision You’ve Made was Done in a Second | By Dr Emmanuel Eni Amadi PhD, MBA, MSc, PGDip, B.Pharm.

“Good Decisions Come from Experience. Experience comes from making Bad Decisions.” - Mark Twain.

"Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking" is a book written by Malcolm Gladwell that focuses on the power of intuition and the unconscious mind in making quick decisions. I first heard about this book when I attended the Strategic Leadership Professional Development Programme at Harvard University. That was in September 2019. I remember when the instructor, Michael Shinagel, recommended some books that are vital for making strategic decisions in leadership.

As soon as arrived back in the UK, it was one of the leadership books I bought from Amazon while writing my Executive Education module on Strategic Leadership and Decision-Making.

This book is about how leaders make snap, but great decisions without the typical hour-long and boring boardroom meetings full of debates without reaching a ‘consensus’.

Gladwell argues that sometimes our best decisions are made without conscious thought, relying instead on our gut instincts and experiences. In other words, great decision-makers have trained their minds to naturally make great decisions in the “consciousness of their unconscious minds”.

The first section of the book, on page 18, explores the concept of "thin-slicing," or the ability of the mind to make split-second decisions based on limited information, or ‘the thinnest slices of experience’ as he puts it (see page 50). Gladwell offers several examples of successful thin-slicing, including a firefighter's ability to quickly assess a burning building and a psychologist's ability to diagnose a patient from only a brief interaction. However, Gladwell also discusses the potential dangers of thin-slicing, such as unconscious biases that can lead to inaccurate judgments.

The second section focuses on the role of emotions in decision-making. Gladwell argues that emotions can often provide valuable insight into a situation, allowing us to make better decisions than we would with purely rational thought. However, he also notes that emotions can sometimes lead us astray, causing us to make decisions based on fear or anger rather than logic.

Overall, "Thinking without Thinking" challenges the idea that we need to carefully analyze every decision we make. Instead, Gladwell suggests that we trust our intuition and rely on our experiences and emotions to guide us towards the best possible outcome. While thin-slicing and emotional decision-making are not foolproof methods, they can often provide valuable insights that a purely rational approach may miss.

Dr Emmanuel Amadi holds a doctorate degree in Medical Sciences and specialises in Lung Cancer Genomics, Cancer pathology, Molecular mechanisms, Nanotoxicology of nanoparticles in drug delivery, COPD, asthma, and lung cancer. He’s the Founder of Amadi Global Leadership Academy | Executive Education, where he provides oversight for the development of future leaders. He is the author of 2 books on entrepreneurship and Leadership.

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