Taking on GladwellOver at 'Knowledge Is Power' EastSight Consulting President Parmelee B. Eastman blogs about our VARBusiness 500 awards speaker Malcom Gladwell, whose new book 'Blink' extols the power of 'thinking without thinking'. Eastman writes: "In my experience, instinctive decision-making works in a very limited number of instances. And a big problem with those cases is that you don't know which ones are appropriate until the results of the decisions are known. And even then, you cannot be sure which, or if, another decision would have produced superior results." She goes on to spell out four specific objections to Gladwell's thesis that, for an unbiased expert, 'snap' judgements can provide better results than decisions that take into account much larger sets of data. I don't think even Gladwell would disagree with these observations. What he does do is provide a framework for appreciating how often those instant judgements are correct. With a hand in planning and building a number of different websites, I hear ideas daily for new elements and designs, that I find I instinctively categorize: Good; Good but not worth the effort; Good for somebody else; Just Plain Bad. While, as Eastman notes, that gives me little to use to justify my decisions to management, I find it has helped me be confident in my screening process for investigating the best ideas further. Posted by Joe Caponi at 02:13 PM, July 19, 2006 This is a public forum. United Business Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. United Business Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers. Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of United Business Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in United Business Media's Terms of Service. Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business. |
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