Your boss has asked you to provide a memo on Malcolm Gladwel

Your boss has asked you to provide a memo on Malcolm Gladwell\'s hot management bestseller, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, summarizing the most important messages for practice in your company. More specifically, she asks you if it would be worthwhile to pay Mr. Gladwell $100,000 to visit your company as a consultant and to spend a day reviewing in-house practices and suggesting improvements. Some questions you should address as you read the book and write the review are:

What are the conditions under which snap-judgments are effective and you should rely on them?

When should you not rely on snap-judgments? And, what should you do instead?

What are Gladwell\'s answers to these questions?

Are Gladwell\'s conclusions and advice based on valid data and credible logic?

What specific decision problems in your business could you ask Mr. Gladwell to help you analyze?

The bottom line is, \"Would you pay Mr. Gladwell $100,000 to visit your company?\"

Turn in a thorough, well written, and properly formatted word document.

Solution

Memo

Malcolm Gladwell is the author of one of the best-selling management book entitled \"The power of Thinking without thinking.\" In this book discusses on how many people make decisions on various situations and occasions. The book is based on the blink which is about Snap Judgments. Snap judgments are described as the quick or impetuous decisions, and they can be beneficial as well as catastrophic also to individuals.

There are some decisions which will require the use of snap judgments so as to be effective. For example, in a hospital, a doctor can make a snap judgment on an emergency case of injury to a patient even before doing some texts so as to provide first aid with an intention to save the patient. In Comedy also there are some judgments one will make so as to capture the attention of the audience. Lastly, in a war set-up, snap judgment can be used in case of a sudden attack and without waiting for a command, the soldiers make decision of fighting back.

Snap judgments can be ineffective especially when hiring an employee. It is not good to apply the snap judgment in recruitment since the first impression may not be accurate or can be faked and therefore a through process needs to be taken so as to choose the right candidate. In buying different, products, it is important to scrutinize the product and understand it well before purchasing since the first impression may cheat the buyer and buy the wrong product.

Gladwell urges that many people are driven by the first impression of something, and they make decisions without doing more analysis and coming up with concrete decisions. Through the analysis of the Seven-up shop, he urges out that many customers would choose a product in regard to its packaging without even making any distinction between the package and the product which make them choosing what is too relevant to them. Gladwell urges that we should base our decision making and judgment from inside and not outside so as to avoid being led by emotions, past experiences, and our environment. His judgments are based on valid data and credible logic hence they are valid conclusions.

One of the key decision problems that we would like Gladwell to handle in our company is based on the recruitment and selection of employees and also the decisions related to investments. Sometimes in making decisions on investment can be attracted by first impressions of the investment portal hence head up losing all the capital and therefore it would be effective for Gladwell to handle that issues as well as decisions on who to recruit and hire for positions without necessarily looking at the first impressions and judgment.

Therefore according to the issues which are critical and affecting our organization regarding recruitment of employees and decisions on investment, it would be worthwhile to contract Mr. Gladwell to handle the issue and pay him $100,000. This will be worthwhile since the company relay needs his expertise on this.