Tag: learning

I’m reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink and am finding it fascinating.  He talks about decisions we make and opinions we form ‘in the blink of an eye’ and how they are often more accurate than those made with pages and pages of research and data.  I call it ‘gut feeling’ or just plain intuition, and I believe it in very strongly.

I’m not necessarily very good at it, but sometimes I have an instant reaction to someone or something that I later dismiss, only to be proved right (in my instant reaction) further down the line.  That was often the case when recruiting staff, and I usually went against my gut instinct because others felt differently.  In two particular instances, going against my instinct (we also talk about our ‘better judgment’) turned out to be pretty disastrous, as those who were recruited turned out to be totally wrong for the organisation, and in fact did considerable damage.

So what is this gut reaction / intuition?  Where does it come from?  What part of our brain is poised to tell us instantly what’s right or wrong?  I’m no scientist, but think it must be part of our primitive brain.  Think of animals and how they seem to know instinctively when there is danger (or even the prospect of a thunderstorm!) and often react positively or negatively to some people for reasons we can’t fathom.  Is this some form of basic protection all species have?  It makes sense to me.  Our ancestors needed to respond quickly to threats, so obviously needed to be able to recognise a threat.  As we have developed we rely more on analysing situations and people in depth, so those instinctive reactions have been pushed to the back.  Yet they’re still there, and I suspect that we should all listen to that inner voice, trust our instincts and not allow other people to sway us quite so much.

Next time you get that gut feeling, stop and ask yourself ‘what makes me think this?’ You may find that first ‘blink’ is the right one!