To make a critical decision, we often siphon in as much raw data as possible, listen to expert advice, run scenarios, and then place our bet or bets on the most logical course of action.
But if you notice, the captain of the Starship Enterprise was not Logical Spock; it was Hothead Kirk. And for good reason. Traveling where no man has gone before is an high-risk job, conditions where gut judgment often turns out to be right, according to Malcolm Gladwell in his 2005 best seller Blink.
“There are lots of situations — particularly at times of high pressure and stress — when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions offer a much better means of making sense of the world,” he writes on Gladwell.com.
That’s because the brain has the extremely valuable ability to recognize the important from the non-important based on just a “thin-slice” of experience.
Some people take Blink to command that we unplug our computers and fire all consultants, but Gladwell is careful to explain when rapid cognition works and when it doesn’t.
Guessing Game
Netflix has discovered another case where brain power is proving an effective competitor to computer modeling.
Writing on Harvard Online in The Secret to Better Netflix Recommendations … and Better Decision Making, Jeff Stibel reports that out-of-work psychologist Gavin Potter is a front runner (screen name, “Just a Guy in a Garage”) to win the Netflix Prize for improving the accuracy of the service’s recommendations feature. Says Stibel:
“… he stands out because he is not a computer scientist, programmer, or techie-geek. Rather, he is an unemployed psychologist. How is he beating out most of the other computer geeks? By following the brain.”
Potter’s method relies on prediction rather than calculation to arrive at recommendations. Less information rather than more.
The lesson? According to Stibel, it’s this:
“Businesses that continue to try and solve problems by brute force, calculating massive amounts of data, will fail. Businesses that focus on sparse data and educated guesses will have a paradoxical advantage.”
Blink offers an interesting juxtaposition with James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds. In the former, the lesson seems to be that a single brain working in about 2 seconds can make a better decision than a room full of data-crunching machines. Wisdom of the Crowds posits that a number of unrelated, ordinary people brought together can make a more accurate prediction about the likelihood of an event than a single expert.
The paradox to ponder for me in all this is that so-called informed decisions are not always the best ones. Consultants and other subject specialists can be tremendous allies to help you steer your way, but their output is just one resource to consider. Your brain got you where you are today, so don’t stop listening to it now!
Who or what do you turn to when making an important decision at work? Has your gut served you well or poorly in the past?
(Image by Think Blink, CC 2.0)
