I've been asked so frequently if I have read Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, that I feel as if I may have been one of the last to do so. Gladwell's book is about the power of snap judgements and ways that people develop the ability to make them. Primary among these is the ability to "thin slice," that is, to know exactly what to look for in an individual's behavior, in authenticating a rare object, or in addressing a situation under examination. To "thin slice" is to be able to decide quickly based on, among other things, a small sample of information and the suppression of subtle and slowly-developed biases. In fact, Gladwell's examples suggest that added information and individuals' biases often get in the way of good decision making. In part, it's a reflection of what we often term "analysis paralysis" in MBA-speak.
A distant cousin to thin slicing in our management curricula of the past forty years has been the revival of Bayesian statistics, the science of decision making based on probabilities derived from very small samples of data. The Bayesians in some ways freed decision makers from the burden and expenses (in terms of money, but especially in terms of time) of large-sample information gathering and analysis.
In Gladwell's terms, thin slicing and blink take place "behind a locked door" in our brains, one that he suggests resides somewhere between the conscious and the subconscious. (This suggests that the subtitle—"the power of thinking without thinking"—may depend on one's definition of thinking.) Most of those who are able to practice blink are unable to describe how they do it, any more than an artist can describe how he or she produces a work of fine art. But many believe that it is a learned behavior. In fact, some of the experts described in the book apparently gained their ability to thin slice through extensive research, observation, and practice. For example, a marriage counselor, by breaking down films of couples talking with each other, carefully categorizing behavior patterns, and doing this for years, has prepared himself (and trained others) to predict accurately, with just three minutes of viewing time, whether a marriage will succeed or fail. Rarely, it seems, is "thin slicing" innate.
Our MBA students often like to think that they are practicing blink. It goes by the common name of "gut feel." For years, their instructors have expended a great deal of energy trying to get them to base their judgements on evidence versus snap judgements. Will "gut feel" now gain newfound credibility under the banner of "blink" being practiced by untrained amateurs? Or is it possible that, slowly by slowly, a case-oriented curriculum involving hundreds of case studies helps an MBA candidate gain the capability to thin slice? Or is the typical business decision so much more complicated and less repetitive than, say, evaluating the authenticity of a rare object, that a manager never gains the ability to thin slice with any degree of reliability? In other words, is "blink" a behavior particularly suited to rather simple binary decisions? If this is the case, why is it that some executives seem able to make better-quality snap judgements than others while gaining the value of speed in the process? What do you think? 
To read more: Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005)
HBS Working Knowledge readers: For your response to be included, please respond on or before Thursday, February 17th.