Malcolm Gladwell: Blink

episode 91

SHOW TRANSCRipt

Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 91. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons and in a blink of an eye, I'm always as usual joined by the man himself. Mr. Mark Pearson, freelance. Good morning, ma. Good morning, Mike. Don't you worry listeners. If you blink, we're not going to disappear. We are here for the long haul episode 91. What an exciting show we've got coming up. And Mark, um, this is gonna be the next installment of, uh, mr. Gladwell, uh, and last week dove into the world of the tipping point, which is, it was all about how ideas spread, how they catch on, um, where we're going today. We are going to internalize a little bit. We are turning Michael Gladwell's

[00:01:00] book, blink (buy on Amazon) And we are revolutionizing ourselves and thinking and understanding about the world within us, us, our subconscious alignments and the way that we make decisions. Well, you know, it's funny, isn't it? Because it's almost like he's written these books perfectly. One is about, you know, the tipping point is about how big ideas go out in the world. And blink is kind of how these ideas come into our personal world and both the tipping point and blink. We're absolutely huge. I mean, outliers, which we are going to do in this series was even bigger, but I mean, this man has got an amazing hit list of really. Best sellers. It's, it's quite incredible that he can use this, uh, new lenses looking how we behave and how we think and how they relate in this new world.

[00:02:00] Uh, this sort of knowledge economy, world, this digital world. Um, he really is onto something with blink though. Isn't he? Yeah, he is an, I liked the two episodes as a pair because you're right. Tipping point is how we kind of externalize ourselves how we are. We look out into the world, but then blink is okay. Well, how are you going to receive someone else? Well, how are you going to internalize or listen to others? And I like this as a, as a pair, as a two hander here, because you do have the inside and the out and you're right. It's kind of like Gladwell's so, all right. Well, I've given all these tips and I've delved into these experiments in tipping point, but what happens for those people on the other side of the coin, where do they learn? Where do they. Think from, and this element and this, uh, behavior that Gladwell has that transcends all his books is just fascinating. He's such a great thinker and he's just, he's so able to break things down in a

[00:03:00] way that is understandable. You can get it. It's a little bit like tar labs technique of bringing in lots and lots of. Uh, examples and analogies, but I'd say Gladwell, maybe it's it's actually, sometimes it's a funding. That's a little bit easier to follow his experiments for me, at least. Yeah. I think he's up there with Adam Grant, Simon Sinek. He he's really. I mean, he's almost living the tipping point in making his ideas very contagious, relatable, understandable, shareable. And I think in, in, in this episode, what I, what I want to kind of set up for, uh, for you and the listeners might is I think this is a chance for us to be more aware about how we actually think and how we think is such a powerful tool because. We have total control over how we think particularly we want to perceive things around us. So I think if we, I'm more aware of how we think we can make better

[00:04:00] decisions and if we make better decisions, I think we can realize our hopes and our dreams that much quicker and that much better. So I think if you're looking to think clearly be aware of how you make important decisions for, we have got a great show in front. For you, we're gonna hear a lot from, from Gladwell. We're going to have some really pragmatic tips. We've got some amazing case studies where this all comes alive. Mark. I think we need to jump on in where shall we start the adventure? I think it would only be right. We ended last week hearing from Gladwell talking about the tipping point.

Let's begin this week by hearing Malcolm Gladwell again, telling us and introducing his book. Blink and why we should consider and make judgments in the blink of an eye. My book is a book about snap judgments about that kind of thinking we do like this. So when you take a chair out to focus groups, you're getting people to [00:05:00] make a judgment. Like they look at it, do you like it right now? My question that I ask in this book is how seriously do we take that judgment? Does it mean we understand if someone took the chair home and live with it for a year and sat it on every day and gave us a judgment. We understand that kind of judgment, but we're not doing that. We're having a focus group with the chair in the center of the room.

When we say, what do you think that people say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, what does that mean? What do we know about the accuracy, the strength, the whatever of that particular judgment? And so the book is an attempt to come up with some kind of principles for understanding when that judgment is trustworthy when it's not, you know, it's so funny when I listened to that, I always think about these moments. When people ask me a question, During, uh, my work and they said, well, what do you think about this? And you've been off thinking about something else. And you are presented with this sort of snap judgment moment where, [00:06:00] um, you haven't had no this time and consideration and it's honey, how you. You can in fact give an answer. And I think what Gladwell does very well, uh, in his book and what we're going to show in these clips is how we get to that and how we can get to that foster response. Um, in a positive way and how we can set ourselves up, uh, to make the best snap judgements.

But also he's going to tell us some great stories on how we can avoid the downside of the very same thing. You know, the funny thing is Mike, you know, we often talk about. Frameworks on how to think and so problems. And there's a lot of different models on how we might see the world macro micro through all sorts of social political and economic lenses, all sorts of how to think lenses, first principles and all of this. But what we're [00:07:00] really going to get to is the very essence of who we are, those snap subconscious judgments.

And you know, the funny thing is Matt, I have not. Thought a lot about how I make these snap judgements. What about, you know, you know what, I actually, I'm not a, well I'm sure my family would disagree with this. I was about to say I'm not much of a snap judgment type of guy, but actually, maybe I am, maybe my behavior is born out of snap, judgments and reacting immediately to things. But actually I like to think that if I'm making a decision. I will try to have elements of the big picture. I'll try and consider. Okay, well, what's leading me to this decision making process, but actually what I found with Gladwell's blink is that's not always the most beneficial use of time because actually you can, and we'll go into this more in the show, but you can actually get to that point of [00:08:00] making that decision without having to spend lots and lots of time digging into all of the.

The data, not necessarily the data, but the decision making elements around me and that actually, I'm not a little bit surprising to be honest. Yeah. It's cause I think, um, It's easy to assume that not until you've some very rigorous process that you might know the answer, but there is ways to get this signal through the noise at a very early stage. And this is the reveal in the work of Gladwell. So I'm actually gonna, I'm going to play this next clip because he talks about this concept of. Thin slicing, um, and how we can wrap up ugly, uh, start to form ideas. So let's have a listen to Malcolm Gladwell. My new book blink is, um, it's, uh, it's about rapid cognition. And, um, by that, I mean, the kind of thinking that takes place, uh,

[00:09:00] in the blink of an eye, as opposed to kind of thinking that we do consciously and deliberately, um, over some period of time. And I used the word thinking, because I think that what goes on in that the kind of decisions we make in the blink of an eye represents thinking. It's rational. It's just that it's operating below the level of awareness and operating by slightly different rules than the other kinds of thinking, which we're very familiar with. And the book is a call to kind of understand and appreciate the enormous power, both for good Andy, all of that kind of thing. There you go. So very similar that he's now helping me contextualize it there's room. And actually, again, it's interesting to dig into this in the book. Seeing the benefits of both sides, whether you're perhaps a slightly longer decision maker versus somebody who is able to do racket rapid progression and make those decisions in the blink of an eye, that snap decision making there's values of both.

[00:10:00] And it's interesting when you sort of turn the camera on yourself and think, okay, well, what have I been doing in my past? Which one? Which captains do I kind of naturally fall into right now in order to kind of grow. To learn from Gladwell and you make an improvement. Um, he's really making a case for, um, both the power of this idea of thin slicing of knowing that we can make deductions very, very quickly at a subconscious. Uh, and he, uh, he's kind of challenging us to really think about these two levels of thinking conscious and subconscious thinking. And, um, I think. The opportunity here for all of our listeners is this is a great shortcut. If you can use the concepts in blink, you'll be able to. Go faster with a good level of

[00:11:00] confidence about your decisions, um, because you can trust in the power of the human subconscious to make really powerful decisions. And I, I mean, I think that's, that's a very exciting concept because, um, we live in a world where we make millions of decisions. We are. Always trying to process the data around us in order to make the best, the best decision possible. So, I mean, I think this is pretty damn important stuff. Um, if you, if you're dealing with ideas and collaboration, um, in your daily work, then this is essential. Otherwise if you follow a traditional. Almost academic process. Uh, you're going to be the sort of the last one, um, in the queue because you're going to take forever to get the processing done. So I think there's an opportunity for a bit of a shortcut here. What do you think? Yeah, I think shortcut, um,

[00:12:00] with. That confidence that you're talking about. And that Gladwell goes into is where the real benefit of blink comes through. If I'm able to have confidence in my decision making and do it enough, asked away that's actually more valuable to my teammates and peers, because I'm responding faster and maybe with a better. Um, level of confidence. That's, that's a real value add. If I spend, you know, tens of minutes or hours deliberating a bit of feedback or a direction or a decision that causes delays and value. Add of me spending that extra time is probably often nil or maybe it's invisible to the ultimate Ryan and having that as that awareness. And it's kind of like a new discipline to learn. Isn't it, this new challenge of providing it in a much faster way, but at the same time, exercising those steps to deliver that ultimate confidence.

[00:13:00] That's what we're going to benefit. I totally agree. And I think that where we're going to go on this show together is we're going to look at a couple of really famous case studies, um, that Gladwell has built this work out us. So we can really understand this idea of. Subconscious thinking how we make these snap judgements. And then we're going to do some insanely practical, um, clips around how we can do it, how we can embrace this process. But talking about embracing things, Mark, I want to encourage our fabulous listeners, thousands and thousands of them all around the globe. I think we want them to embrace the act. Of the app store review of the podcast review. Mark, do you think they're up for it? I think that all you and I need to do is blink our eyes and we'll open up the app stores and find all of our listeners have gone on and left just one or two little reviews [00:14:00] because as we, as we say, we're so excited when we hear from our listeners, we're so excited to see.

New countries and locations popping up across the globe who are listening to the show. It, it gives us so much joy. We're so proud to see all these lessons and all these fantastic. Location. And the only way that that gets out there is by you, our listeners leaving us a review or a rating. So we really encourage everybody. Who's listening to the show and enjoying listening to Mike and Mark chatting away and learning out loud from innovators. Just to leave us a rating, a review in Apple podcast or any of your podcasting software of choice as it'll help us get the word out there.

Yeah. So if you're listening right now and you've got a free hand, um, you know, I really encourage you to go out there and to, um, open up your app. I can see here, like there's literally [00:15:00] over 110. Ratings and reviews from you. Alison, the summary. I think we can push the doll. I think we should go for the big one 50. And it's really important because when you do this, uh, we are recommended more in people's feeds. And the reason this matters is that the laws that we're starting to uncover, we learn from innovators are universal. Um, we're learning that resilience. Well learning that embracing discomfort, that to always be learning, there are these universal laws of how to be the very best version of ourselves.

And we feel that everybody deserves a chance to listen, to understand these ideas and to come and join the company. Let's let's talk about them. Let's see how we can all learn together. So please leave us a rating or review. But now it's time to take a challenge.

[00:16:00] In fact, now it's time to take the Pepsi challenge. And, um, this was a famous marketing ploy where Pepsi had people blind taste Coke and Pepsi. And it really AIDS scared. Uh, this was the first time Pepsi really challenged them. And what's interesting is Malcolm Gladwell did a lot of work to understand what they had done and actually some of the caution that we should take with these sorts of tests, these snap judgments. So let's have a listen now to Malcolm Gladwell, um, based on his work in the book, blink talking about the Coke and Pepsi. That our preferences as expressed in a snap judgment are extraordinarily unstable. That's a very important point because it is the assumption of many people in many aspects of our lives. Let's just talk about market research here. The assumption of a lot of market researchers is that when they measure a preference for something they're measuring some kind

[00:17:00] of inherent position on that issue or product or thing. Right. But in fact, that's wrong. In fact, when you measure something in, by a snap judgment, what your measure it's unbelievably volatile. Let me give you an example. Um, coconut Pepsi, remember the Pepsi challenge, like two cups. One's got Coke. One's got Pepsi. You give it to them drinkers and you say, take a sip of each, which one do you prefer? And lo and behold. Coke drinkers always the first Pepsi, right? That's what caused Coke to do the whole new Coke thing 20 years ago, because they're getting killed in this seeming. Yeah. Extraordinarily objective measure of what people preferred and it's all his internal correspondence and Coke at the time when they were like, Oh my God, maybe we're not the best take tasting Coke. Right? Maybe American, you can taste of change. And Cola is not what it once used to be. Maybe we gotta be more like Pepsi after all. We're asking, not just five or 10 people, but you know, tens of thousands of people were given the Pepsi challenge and the result, that's an extraordinary,

[00:18:00] robust statistical margin and they need something like 60 or 65% of Coke drinkers said in the sip test that they preferred Pepsi does not seem to suggest that Pepsi is better tasting than Coke. Right? She seems like a very stable way of measuring. No, it doesn't suggest that at all. Cause the whole test is in fact, a kind of fraud. It's a sip test. When you're sipping any drink, you will always prefer the sweeter one. Right? If on the other hand you drank the whole, can you, the sweetie, the sweetness will start to become cloying and your preference will shift back to the thing. That's not so sweet. Pepsi sweeter than Coke. Pepsi will always win a sip test. Make people drink the whole can. They'll prefer Coke. Right? Well, what should those two scenarios is more like the real world. Well, that's people are buying Cola, taking one sip and throwing it out. You're actually far more interested in what they think after tasting the whole camp. Oh, you're right. There is an element of. Adam Grant coming through here a little [00:19:00] bit where he's taking an experiment in this case that was digging into the Coke V Pepsi challenge, which is a globally, uh, well known challenge. I'd say, you know, everybody kind of heard of it. A lot of us probably experienced the other Cokes that they tried to make and what Glen was doing a great job here of is. Looking at it with another lens. And what I get from this example is experiment this new way of looking at that challenge that they, uh, that they did back then is living with a decision. Is is not often the same. You don't necessarily get the same outcome as you do making that snap decision. So, you know, if I was to turn the lens of myself for a second and I make a decision, it could be exactly the same as, as, as this, uh, Coke versus Pepsi scenario. I've chosen this sweeter option. I've chosen the,

[00:20:00] uh, The answer to a problem. Maybe it's a design related one. Maybe it's a product related one. Maybe it's a challenge for a client and I've possibly chosen one that's maybe a little bit easier. Maybe I've chosen. The one that I think is what people want to hear. And that's a little bit shortsighted because I haven't drunk the whole can. I haven't experienced the whole answer yet. And something that I like to do, Mike, is I like to make a decision in my head and then slim. I'll sleep on it. Oh yeah. I'll wake. Oh yeah. Oh, have I made the right decision? Okay. Yeah. Or no. Yeah, I saw, I think there's a big part of that. Um, you know, we've talked a lot about if you're going to work on an idea, for example, I'm working, uh, on a piece of work now to big master class, and I've been thinking about it for weeks, and I'm almost ready now to produce this, this

[00:21:00] masterclass. And there's a few things. That my snap judgment was about some of the content, but giving it time too refined and to brew nicely has been important. I think there's a, there's a, there's another thing here that we can learn from Gladwell is to always question. The stimulus, if there was ever a great example of that, have a look at how much misinformation and hysteria has been around, uh, health data the last six months. And then, uh, Uh, people jumping to conclusions when they haven't really evaluated the stimulus as a Gladwell, quite rightly points out. The big trick Pepsi played was it's sweet. So when you take a small portion, you prefer it. But I mean, you're so sugared up. If you

[00:22:00] drink a whole candidate stuff, um, So you would actually prefer Coke. Um, so making sure that before you react to question the stimulus and to make sure that whatever data is being presented to you, that it was actually captured in the correct way. That is a really essential thing. And that's also why. Um, you will have heard on, on this podcast many times that I'm not a huge fan of the traditional focus group, because you genuinely get people well around a table, trying to imagine how they would feel about something that they can explain without looking silly in front of others. Uh, my preference is to change the stimulus and say, if you want to know how they would evaluate a new consumer appliance. Or a new business service, give them that service, a prototype of that service or that appliance and test it in real life. I'm asking them to imagine what it would be

[00:23:00] like and how they would feel about it is such a leap of faith that that's the wrong stimulus says. You'll hear that Gladwell often could take focus groups with as well. This is like a good reminder, too. Make sure before you react to anything that this is the stimulus is right, because Coke freaked out about nothing in the end. Um, they could have responded and told him, right. But they in fact created a whole new product, which then they can, because people went back to cope when they realized. Perhaps he was too damn sweet. Um, so this is a great learning in how this is sort of the dark side, if you will, about snap judgements. And I think that, um, not only in work, but I think our media presents us with so much stimulus that when you dig into it, facts are super, super questionable, you know? The classic one, there's a, there's a new report out, but how many times do we actually check the report? And I think that's what Gladwell

[00:24:00] is asking us to do. And I think we can all be a little bit more diligent. On the data before drawing insights and responses, don't you ma I, I couldn't agree more, a lot of the projects that we've done in recent history, in fact, it's going down, um, driven responses by customers and. We we've got to take that pinch of salt. You're right. When we sit in front of a customer or we imagine we ask them to imagine something, I think it's so much more valuable when you put something, even if it's a low fidelity prototype or visual or simple proposition and ask them to maybe it's rate it, maybe it's provide that point of view based on how they interpret whatever it is that you put in front of them. And. That's always quite a fun. It's quite a fun actually, but also equally, so much more valuable then, you know, me asking you Mike to imagine a certain

[00:25:00] scenario. And then we take, and I take that as at face value because. I don't know what you're imagining. It's harder for me to quantify that. And that, that I think is, is so true to where Gladwell's pushing us there, question that stimulus and, you know, really dig into why the customers or why a brand has made that as a decision. And in this next clip, Gladwell has got a great build on this. So we've talked a little bit about washing the stimulus, but you can actually be in control of what information comes to you. And we're going to jump from the world of soda and, uh, you know, sugary drinks. And we're going to jump into the world of the orchestra. Um, rather than focusing on individual and differences in individuals, I like to focus on differences in environments. So to give you an example, I have a child during the book that talks about, um, uh, the classical music world. And for years, and

[00:26:00] years and years, classical orchestras were entirely male. And if you asked people in the business maestros, why they only hired men, they would say, well, men are better musicians and women, they are fundamentally inherently better. And you said, well, why do you think that? And they'd say, well, we have. Auditions open auditions and women coming to play alongside men and the men always play better. So, you know, what could be a more transparent and objective way of measuring musical ability. And if men are always winning, you know, the women only ever win the competition for the heart. And so, you know, there was a problem with women here. Well then for a variety of reasons in the eighties, they started to put up screens, additions. So you could only hear you couldn't see. And immediately they start to hire women. And now in the last 25 years, orchestras have gone from being about 5% female to being roughly 50 50, which says that since the imposition of the screen, we haven't had disproportionately one. More auditions than men, which would suggest actually that if anyone is inherently better musician, it's a woman, but that's, I'll put that [00:27:00] aside.

What that says is that in ways that they did not realize the evidence of their eyes and their unconscious feelings about women were prejudicing, the snap judgment, cause an audition is a snap judgment. The snap judgment that kind of maestros were making about people playing music that they were, they had, their judgment was corrupted. By this enormously, apparently powerful thing called you know, sexism. Right. And when we put the screen up, what we did is we took the Maestro who was a very bad snap decision maker and we made him a good one again right now. Um, that says to me that. People make good snap decisions in environments where some attempt has been made to, um, to, uh, uh, clean up the sources of contamination. Um, and yeah, what's interesting about that story of course, as well, is that it's a case where we made someone a better decision maker by taking away information as another key, very interesting thing. That exact decisions are better.

[00:28:00] When we've gotten rid of sources of contamination and also where we have simplified the kind of decision making palette. Now we're getting, now we're getting into blinking. I like this. So if, if, if the previous clip Coke versus Pepsi, you know, we're sort of questioning the stimulus, questioning the data. This is taken another layer deeper. We're questioning the data as well as the judgment of. Uh, in this case, maestros, uh, in the, in the past. And I think this, this really ignites me is when considering this kind of blind test, so to speak, um, of the male versus female performance. Yeah, you are, you're taking away information, which for me. If I was considering how to make a decision, I'd want to look at that big picture. I'd want to get all of the data, all of the elements to it in order to make an informed decision. But actually this is where blink really comes into its own because it's saying, Gladwell's saying no, no [00:29:00] remove data or to get rid of that contamination. So you can make the right decision with confidence.

You're absolutely right. It's sort of like this counter intuitive, uh, situation. Let your subconscious focus. Completely and fully on the thing that matters most, which is the sound they produce. And what's quite interesting about this is it's exactly the same as what the TV show, the voice does. It has the judges sit with their backs to the artists so they can focus on guess what the voice and what's what's tempting, particularly in a work situation is to get a big long. Document right with all, all of the context and all of the dates. But I think what this is calling out for is for us to ask ourselves what is important information and what could we [00:30:00] remove? In order to make it better. And this reminds me of this parallel Mark between the, the best writing is writing that has been edited. And the art of being a good editor is to cut half and then cut another half again, which is a famous rule of editors that actually by reducing the copy, you make the writing better. I think there's a pattern here. Yeah. Oh yeah. I really do. And the voice is a perfect, um, You know, pop culture reference to this actually. And it's very, very physical. Isn't it? Their backs are literally turned.

So if we, if we think about that from a decision making perspective for me, I, I would have to try and turn my back on a time. You know, the pressure, the time pressure of having to make a decision based on maybe a logistics, I guess probably is a contamination in my [00:31:00] experience that gets in the way of making a decision or a providing maybe a bit of feedback that is fully informed by myself conscious and my belief in what it is. Um, And it's polluted. It's polluted because I'm thinking, ah, but can we do this? Uh, what about, um, the timeline and that's kind of what I should be turning my back on at least to a certain extent, um, similar to, you know, there's judges in the voice or, uh, the, the orchestra Maestro's looking for for a new member. Less is more so a few practical frameworks, you know, it wouldn't be a good show if I wasn't throwing a framework or two around, so how can we do this? How can we focus on what matters? How can we, you know, effectively. Turn our backs reduce the information that we can focus on. What really [00:32:00] matters my bed framework I can come up with is what we called the Eisenhower matrix. This is, um, um, built around four key thoughts. What am I going to do? Do, what am I going to plan? What am I going to delegate? And what am I going to eliminate? And the architecture. All of this is that you focus upon what is urgent and what is important. And invariably, our great challenge in our day to day is we keep focusing on urgent, but we don't ever get around to the important, I need draw out this matrix. If something is both urgent and important, that's a do. If it's not important. And it's not urgent you eliminate.

So this is called the Eisenhower matrix. Are you feeling all Eisenhower issue now, Mark? I like that a lot. [00:33:00] So you apply the matrix, the Eisenhower models to the, to these moments. And therefore it's kind of like almost cracking a new code or a new language. Perhaps you look at it in a different way and you think, okay, well, this is the utmost important. This has to be done, has to be done now. Right. I'm going to focus myself on that. That's a great, yeah. So, so, so the new ones there is, it's when it's both important and urgent that to do. If it's important, but not urgent, you should plan to do it if it's urgent, but it's not very important, then you should delegate it. And if it's neither urgent and neither important elimination, that is exactly what Gladwell was talking about. Here it is. You're right. That's exactly where he's going with this and eliminate it. Eliminate de-clutter.

Yep. Yep. So there you go. I mean, this is, this is a practical way that you can set up you self up to focus on [00:34:00] what both important and urgent information or important and urgent decisions that you need to make. And that's called the Eisenhower matrix. So we'll have a link to that in the show notes. Amazingly simple but powerful tour tool that you can use to, you know, present yourself just with more of the good stuff and less of the distraction. Okay. So, uh, Mark, we are, we are about to go for a rip roaring run through some very practical ways. We can all use this idea of blink by Malcolm Gladwell. But many of our listeners will be thinking, Hey, I want to check in on the tipping point or many of the other 90 shows that we've done. My question is I wonder where they should go to find that information. Well, fortunately, they don't need to apply the Eisenhower matrix. They don't need to consider whether this is important, whether they [00:35:00] delegate this, this is. Recommended for everyone you don't need to declutter or remove contamination. Everybody. You can go right now to moonshots.io. You can listen to our latest show prior to today's. It was Malcolm Gladwell's the tipping point point episode 90. You can dig into. Or previous 90 shows 90 some unbelievable innovators in there such as James clear, Nicholas tar lab. Just to name a couple of recent ones, William H McRaven.

That's a good one. And all the way through to. Elon Musk, Steve jobs, Brenae Brown, some incredible thinkers, and you can find transcriptions of many of those shows. You can find our show notes. You can even find a little section of mantras to inspire you and get you going in the morning. And you can also sign up for our newsletter. So you can be informed as when we've got a new blog posts, new episode that goes live every week.

So [00:36:00] go and check us out@moonshots.io. And if you're feeling really courageous and inspired, Feel free to drop us an email. hello@moonshots.io. We love hearing from listeners and we always welcome recommendations on books, innovators, and new lessons that we can learn out loud with. And on that note, let's get cracking. Let's get into some of the practical, uh, advice that has been decoded from Malcolm Gladwell's book blink. And this time we're going to use, um, somebody who has kind of broken it down. So, uh, this is going to, to be a short, sharp and punchy section of the show. Where we get the chance to hear the rules, to apply the model, the framework, the behaviors for us to think better. So let's kick it off. Let's start with number one, which is looking at the two sides [00:37:00] of the brain.

One first impressions and snap judgments. The ability to come to lightening, quick conclusions, Gladwell notes. Avant for the sake of survival of our functioning occurs without us having to consciously think. And we move back and forth between conscious and unconscious modes of thought. We work with two sides of the brain. One that has to be deliberate over things, analyze and categorize, and the one that sizes things up first and ask questions later. Hmm, it's survival. Is it, is he building, is it the caveman? Is that the actual origin? This subconscious thinking caveman. I think that's exactly where Gladwell's going. So obviously this is, this is somebody else calling out the key lessons, but you're, you're exactly right. I think that this is, Gladwell's saying, look, you look back at history. You look back at caveman and you know, the survival of the fittest, right at the very beginning. And. This is the sort of decision making they would make it's fight or flight, [00:38:00] right? I'm not gonna think jumping on this cheetah, I'm going to go, I'm going to do what I need to survive, because I know that if I delay that decision making, I might miss the opportunity. And

I'm in a world where we are connected all the time. We also. Move at such a fast pace that arguably we now have more time to make those decisions. And again, looping back to what we've been saying, the more time that you have doesn't necessarily mean it's good because you're missing out on the element of speed, but also you're missing out on that confidence that comes with that snap judgment, this, this idea besides of the brain of deliberate thinking versus maybe overthinking is. He's a great, um, the pulling up the caveman is a great way to imagine that I think. Yeah. Yeah. So you got to know when you have a clay cave caveman moment. So [00:39:00] how do you know when, when it's the right time for, for that snap judgment and versus the deliberate thinking that he was pointing out? I reckon it's down to, I reckon it's down to, uh, How much you know about the topic.

I think there's an element when you're a bit of a pro. So going back to your master class mic and the one that you're, you're making at the moment, and that'll assume you're going live, you know, the subject so well, You've now got into it and now you're just deliberating over those final few little details, but the truth is, you know, it probably better than most at this point. And that's why you're able to give it. That's why you're able to do the most. Maybe this idea of making a snap judgment now is actually born out of you just knowing your stuff. So if you weren't in now, spend more time trying to deliberate and see both sides of the coin. It actually isn't adding any [00:40:00] more benefit because you've already done all the hard work. Yeah, you're saying, so what you're saying is avoid second guessing yourself. When you're already got a high level of familiarity, it's when something's brand new and you're sort of onboarding into a topic or an area that's when you should be more deliberate. But if you're already deep in a thing, trust that your subconscious is actually giving you a signal and you can pursue that and make sure you follow up on that. I mean, that makes total sense to me. I can relate to that. And there's many times in my work where my gut feelings are. Hmm.

That's a bit of a concern or. Wow. That's awesome. Like you just feel it, you just know it and you've just been, you, you, you make that snap judgment in moments, don't you? Yeah, you do. And again, that's a perfect example. The gut feeling again, it's something that we will kind of throw around a lot, but I think it's born out of what Gladwell's saying in blink, which is that deliberate versus [00:41:00] overthinking, you know, your gut feeling we all rely on, then we, and that's reaction. That's that's your body, that's your caveman instinct, maybe kicking in and saying, Oh, well I think instinctually, I'm going to say that this is the answer. So if you want to overthink it. Sure. But ultimately you're probably going to end up coming back to the response that you had. Yep. Yep. I like your model. I like it. I really like it. So if you're new to it, deliberate, if you're deep in it, snap, rock and roll. Hmm. Yeah, I really like it. All right. Well, we've got another build on thin slicing, which we heard about earlier, and I got a special fee here. Mac, we're going to go to clips back to back. So let's journey into Malcolm Gladwell talking all things thing, slicing too thin. Slicing Gladwell introduces the reader to the concept of thin slicing, which is the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in [00:42:00] situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience. Even the most complex situations he says can be read quickly.

If we can identify the underlying pattern pattern recognition, let's follow up with its partner. Clip again, thin slicing three, looking like a reader. The positive aspect of thin slicing is the ability to make a quick and correct judgments, but it also carries a negative aspect of ones that are hasty and wrong. Hmm. You're right. Pattern recognition on reading, making those quick and correct. And snappy judgements. I'm reminded of the caveman again. You know, this perhaps narrow experience and your body and your mind may have been with an element or an experience like the one you're facing right now. Uh, let's choose something that I'm familiar with. Maybe I've received any email or a, uh, a bit of feedback that [00:43:00] maybe I'm not so comfortable with. Cause I don't really know. I know the answer. And instead, sometimes there'll be that gut instinct, which keeps in saying. Okay, well, you've run into this type of scenario before based on those narrow experience, this is a pattern that my unconscious brain pushes me towards and that fence slicing. That's a good lesson to remember, I think, and, and for me, at least it reinforces the, um, the benefit of behaving in that way. Because once again, we're reminded of doing things quickly, doing it. Uh, active and proactive way is no less beneficial than sitting there thinking about it for 20 minutes or longer. Yeah. So, so how do you, um, move across your different pieces of work so that you can slice thinly across the top to get the information that you need? [00:44:00] To quickly form these, these judgments.

How do you do that? Well, I think I might borrow from the Eisenhower matrix actually. Uh, I think it comes from having the right people around you and being able to distinguish what is urgent and what's important and where it sits on that matrix. So for example, if. There is a task or an issue that I can delegate to somebody else, or I can delegate to a later point in time, then I'm able to, perhaps I'll read an email, I'll read an email first thing and I'll think, okay, well I've understood it, but I'm going to Mark it as unread and I'll come back to it. And I'll similar to my early example of sleeping on a decision that that's my way of sort of. Lodging it in my brain, but then coming back later. So there's [00:45:00] an element of exposing myself from a narrow experience or a thin slice experience right now. And then coming back when I am ready, my unconscious can work on it in the background. It can maybe even decide or do something in my brain, but in order to actually come, I can finish that item. Maybe I'll go and do something else. Maybe I'll go and finish it. Let me, let me try and pitch you my approach to things. Oh, I see. So what I do is on any projects with any person, I try and work with a system where I get like a weekly update on what's happening tends to be like a general status report of how things are going with either with that person or with the project. And then my thin slice. Is I try to pick a thing, just one very specific item that needs to [00:46:00] happen within a project or an activity that a person needs to do. And I drill down into that, um, and use that as a very thin slice.

So let's say there's a project that has. Um, 10 big deliverables and each deliverable has 20 pounds. I will ask a specific question about one of those 10 deliverables, and then I'll go deeper and say, what about part 13? Where are you with that? Show me what you've got on that and what I try to do. To make a snap judgment on, are we on track or not is by just grabbing one specific, very measurable thing. If I see the right attention to detail and the logic seems right, I can therefore deduce if I have chosen to look at the thing, rather than the person presenting to me, uh, chose [00:47:00] that I've created almost a quick, uh, a quick search. Gone deep. And then I say, Oh, part 13 was actually done really well. Fantastic. That's such a good leading indicator that I can make the snap judgment. Yep. This feels pretty good. Um, and that's how I work across having so many different projects with varying levels of complexity. This is how I do it. So making sure that I have a agenda sense of what's happening and then doing a very quick laser-like deep dive. And if, if, for example, I get from that deep dive. Mm. It doesn't feel complete it or at the details there, or maybe just the logic doesn't make sense in it. Then that is then. Triggers. My intuition says, okay, we need a deeper working session to really dive into that. And that's for me, like working across so many [00:48:00] things. That's my, so I'm just going to say thin slicing is more like a survival technique. Um, does that make sense? Yeah, it does. It does. That's your caveman approach. I like it. Yeah, totally. And you know, to build on that, um, As somebody who might give you that item or deliverable that then you do a kind of thin slice or deep dive into, um, yeah, I totally see the value and the benefit of doing that because you are kind of testing the water, you're digging into what that. Deliverable or product or maybe research has contained what it contain. And yeah, there's no need to spent hours and hours going through it all with a fine tooth comb because somebody else already had, you have, you know, delegation and in the element of collaboration, it's, [00:49:00] it's all about making.

Somebody else, uh, giving somebody else the relevant information in order to make a decision and similar to how Gladwell's talking about in blink us, having the ability to think in the right way and provide that level of subconscious decision making to work that somebody's given us. So this concept of, you know, maybe I'm, uh, Always coming back to it. But this concept of communication, collaboration feels like it's coming up again in blink. I think it does. And to build on, on what we've been thinking, I want to go back to the Coke and Pepsi challenge and apply thin slicing to it. Let's say someone came to the two of them since then. I have just done a study with a hundred people and they all prefer Pepsi over Coke. And I've interviewed each of these peoples. Really compelling, 80% of people prefer Pepsi over Coke, I [00:50:00] would say. Oh, okay. Uh, why did you do this study? Who commissioned it? Okay. All right then my, so that's my broad context. Then my deep dive two, before I respond to the data is I would say, okay, I want you to go into your notes. And according to this, there are 80 or so people that were. I'm preferring Pepsi. I want you to open those up and show them to me. And then I'm going to pick a, let's say person 67. And I want you to show me the transcript of what they said in order for you to deduce that they preferred Pepsi. I want you to show me the transcript. I didn't review all the hundred. I just chose one.

But it was me that was choosing because when I cut in there and I choose for that data, if they're like, Oh, actually now I'm looking at it. We don't seem to have person 67, then I'd be like, okay, that now [00:51:00] my faith in your analysis is totally broken. But if they say, yeah, no problem. A book. I mean, my app is the highlight. Actually I could play the audio. If you'd like it, then I'd be like, Oh, damn. Okay. You got this, right? Yeah, yeah. Do the due diligence. And if your colleague or, or whoever it is, struggles to prove that element and the one that you chosen around the mic and it doesn't work. Yeah. You can imagine that maybe there's a few more chinks in the armor. A few more weeks. I liked that. Talking about chinks in the armor. This whole concept has a bit of a chink, doesn't it? It does. And it's fun because the next rapid fire lesson that we're going to hear from now is actually, you know, to be honest, sometimes first impressions they can lead to ross' judgements for [00:52:00] tragic first impressions, the wrong first impression. Can I have more tragic consequences? Gladwell provides a lengthy analysis of the shooting of an innocent man. I'm a dude in the Bronx area of New York.

The, uh, the clip that we've just heard actually is a really fascinating one, Mike, isn't it? Because it reminds me of. The snap judgment and decision making that took place that inspired a Gladwell himself. You know, he was actually a target of some, um, uh, in a particular instance with police, um, in, I think it was Manhattan where he actually fit the profile of a, of a criminal and. Only down to his hair. And for those listeners who know everywhere, he goes, he's got some crazier, he's got some Epic. And it's funny because the police who were involved in this particular instance, they saw him saw Gladwell and said, Oh, he's got the hair of this, [00:53:00] of this criminal, but it doesn't matter that he doesn't look anything else. The criminal that we ran up and got the hair though. And that snap decision making that first impression that can lead to the wrong takeaways that can lead to the wrong reactions and responses in a lot of cases. So there is a danger, so hilarious about it. Mark is also Malcolm Gladwell. It just comes across as the nicest guy articulate smart. Um, I mean, he would be an imagine having a Epic launch in New York with him and just talking about stuff. Um, he's, it's just the most lovely guy. So to think of him being a suspect it's on the streets of New York is sort of a hilarious idea to begin with, but, um, If you, if you're looking for some Epic hair, check out Malcolm Gladwell, I'm, I'm sort of glad, uh, because it inspired him. It inspired him to think. Yeah. Uh, subconscious decision [00:54:00] making, snap, judgments, and so on and bring it to us and show us, you know, using cocaine. Pepsi challenge is just one example that you've got a question, the data, you've got a question stimulus. You've got a question. The hat. Totally and talking about big things. We've got a big clip to wrap up the show. Let's let's have him listen to the last part of this summary of Malcolm Gladwell's book. And let's really focus on this idea of having too much information, five too much information.

We feel, we need a lot of information to be confident in our judgments, but often that extra information while giving us the illusion of certainty makes us more prone. And the mistakes described in the book. Blink are fascinating cases, anecdotes and intellectual detours from Tom Hanks, his star appeal to speed dating to military strategy. To fake Greek statues to the how orchestras handle auditioning that illustrate Gladwell's thesis of the power of first [00:55:00] impressions, zero to one, bringing it all back to us. This. Uh, you know, again, it's, it's a potentially, um, confrontational idea this, you know, for, for those of us like myself who are used to, uh, digging into lots and lots of work and wanting to see all of the elements and, you know, conversely to your example, might maybe actually listening to all of those transcripts and user interviews, that's too much information. And what ends up happening. As, as Gladwell points out in blink is you're going to be prone to mistakes. If you, if you really get into that, because you're blocking your subconscious ability yeah. To avoid, um, contamination of data, right. This is a big call to action to trust the process, to trust your subconscious. And if you. Present yourself with the right information, you can avoid what he, what he [00:56:00] mentioned in this last clip, the illusion of certainty, right? We've got a big report as lots of data, like get over that and make sure you're focused on the right things, things that matter. And I think that is just a really powerful way to sort of bring together all of the thinking that Malcolm Gladwell put into blink, um, and. I, I just feel, uh, more informed, more aware, more present in actually how I'm thinking, whether it's conscious or subconsciously and how I might arrive at a recommendation or a course of action. I think this really puts us in good stead don't you, Matt? It really does. They're the one that I'm going to really remember is apart from, you know, the fantastic relook at the Coke and Pepsi challenge, um, Is this idea of, of making those speedy decisions, making decisions [00:57:00] by removing that contamination and the over, over information over, uh, exposure to information.

That's a great big lesson coming from Gladwell right here and just filtering out stuff that doesn't matter. Right. Exactly filtering it out. And this fantastic example that you brought up about the voice, the screens, the use of screeners placing them. And in order to allow you to really dig into that bit of work, um, and not get too, uh, I suppose, distracted from making that right decision. I think that's a really valuable coming through blink. Hmm. Well, listen, we know how you think is such a powerful thing. And as a first principle, you have total control of your thoughts. So what a gift today? Uh, in just a blink of an eye, we've spent an hour together learning from Malcolm Gladwell in our second [00:58:00] installment of, uh, the Malcolm Gladwell series. What, where do we go next on this Epic adventure with, uh, mr. Gladwell himself, Mark. What's next on the menu. We've got, we've got a couple more books actually, where we're, we're not going to be able to have all of Gladwell, but we're digging into two more of his armed believable bestsellers in episode 92. So the next episode, following blink will be outliers. And then we're going to end the Gladwell series with David and Goliath. Um, I love a challenge and I love that sort of narrative, but what I love equally as much is learning from people like Malcolm Gladwell. It's pretty cool. Right? Uh, I, I get a lot of value from Dean to these innovators every week. I love hearing from our listeners and seeing us cropping up in lots of different locations. So. Um, thank you listeners for, for listening [00:59:00] to us, learning out loud. I hope you get as much out of it as I do well on that note, Mark. And I want to thank you, uh, for helping me learn out loud together with just a few friends, just 10,000 friends, uh, who listened to this show every single month. It is such a. It's such a great challenge.

I love, uh, how some of the ideas are inspiring, some, uh, challenging. Um, and I think that's what we would demand of a show that helps us find the very best version of ourselves. So on that note, uh, I hope all of you, our listeners are feeling more empowered about how they think both consciously and subconsciously, and that you'll come back to join us on the next installment of. The Malcolm Gladwell series. So go out there. I think the biggest and the best ideas and focus on the [01:00:00] things that really matter. And I'm sure you will realize both of your dreams and Joe hubs. So from us, that's the end of the moonshots cast. That's a wrap.