Blink by Malcolm Gladwell is an interesting little book, a quick read that can either give one new ideas on the power of snap judgements and quick decisions, or maybe validate one’s approaches to decision-making that have not been thought about in a formal way. It’s mostly successful in making it’s case, but unfortunately does not give readers much in the way of suggestions as how to utilize what they’ve read.

The basic point of Blink is this: Snap judgements, often culturally derided for not taking all available information into account or ignoring major seemingly-significant factors, can be extremely useful when paired with the appropriate background knowledge or within a strict decision-making framework. With some notable exceptions, they often can be more successful and correct than decisions based upon lots of thinking or mounds of data.

If that sounds boring, it’s not. Gladwell gives plenty of examples of the appropriate use of snap or information-constrained judgements, ranging from a hospital’s process for identifying if someone is having a heart attack (with greater success than previous look-at-all-the-data methods) to a researcher figuring out whether a young married couple will last more than a few years (with a startling degree of accuracy). In doing so, he gives readers a greater awareness of different, successful methods of making quick judgements, so they may be able to start to find them in their own life and work. What Gladwell does not do is provide a formalized framework for identifying when such approaches may work, and it may be in that area that his book falters.

Granted, it’s probably unfair to ask for that much considering Gladwell seems to have just scraped the surface of this subject himself. But it’s absence in Blink does set off my BS meter somewhat, the exact kind of warning to which Gladwell wrote that we should pay attention. In some ways, Blink comes across as a bit of a potemkin village, all examples but without a strong core message. Maybe a core message isn’t necessary in this case, though. I still found it an interesting and even a useful book.

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Gladwell also provides a few cautionary tales about snap judgements used improperly, most notably the 1999 police shooting of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx. While that story in particular works well as a warning, and is followed by some examples of changes or approaches that could have prevented the tragedy, Gladwell again does not give readers a framework for identifying and mitigating situations that may arise in their own lives. As with the other cases, it may not be fair to expect Gladwell to do such a thing, but it does feel like more of a glaring omission in this area. If, indeed, the answer is just trial-and-error until we find something that works, Gladwell should at least say as much.

But, for the most part, these are just grumbles. I’d still recommend the book. (And if you can help me figure out why it occasionally sets off my BS Meter, I’d really like to know.) 7/10.