Blink

by Malcolm Gladwell

Four Horsemen: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. Even within the Four Horsemen, in fact, there is one emotion that he considers the most important of all: contempt.

the simplest way that respect is communicated is through tone of voice,

We need to respect the fact that it is possible to know without knowing why we know and accept that — sometimes — we’re better off that way.

benefits of the locked door. When we ask people to explain their thinking — particularly thinking that comes from the unconscious — we need to be careful in how we interpret their answers. When it comes to romance, of course, we understand that. We know we cannot rationally describe the kind of person we will fall in love

We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.

How good people’s decisions are under the fastmoving, high-stress conditions of rapid cognition is a function of training and rules and rehearsal.

All the improvisation teacher has to do is to reverse this skill and he creates very ‘gifted’ improvisers. Bad improvisers block action, often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action.”

You’ve got to let people work out the situation and work out what’s happening. The danger in calling is that they’ll tell you anything to get you off their backs, and if you act on that and take it at face value, you could make a mistake.

allowing people to operate without having to explain themselves constantly turns out to be like the rule of agreement in improv. It enables rapid cognition.

Insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.

The first is that truly successful decision making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking.

Have you ever tried to have a discussion with an angry or frightened human being? You can’t do it …. You might as well try to argue with your dog.”

We have come to confuse information with understanding.

The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding.