The good book . . .

We just went out west to see our granddaughter (okay, her parents, too). Flights to and from Seattle are long so I finished two books that I had started. They both had been recommended by friends.

One was brilliant - Blink - The Power of Thinking without Thinking. It's about how people sometimes make snap decisions - decisions made quickly about other people without much information (and sometimes with almost no perceivable information).

The author, Malcolm Gladwell, calls this phenonmenon "thin-slicing," coming to a conclusion with only a small slice of information/observation.

The most interesting example to me was about a tennis expert who discovered he was able at professional tennis matches to predict with incredible accuracy when a player was going to double fault. But despite studying tapes, videos, etc., he has been unable to figure out how he's able to do this.

There are so many fascinating stories in the book and I highly recommend it.

As I was reading, I thought about how I can predict (with a fair amount of accuracy) that a woman who enters the store for the very first time won't buy anything. And I think I base that prediction on her behavior and lack of social interaction with me.

I can almost always tell when someone is in the store for the first time. The "buyers" will often say so right away. Others will have this blank look on their face like "What's going on here?" or they'll ask if I carry a certain category that they would know about if they'd been there before.

One of our "rules of conduct" is that every person is greeted within 5-10 seconds after entering.

The predicted non-buyers either don't respond at all or respond with no eye contact. It's strange - they may even say "hello" with their back turned.

I will usually talk a little more to try to warm them up. But when I still can't get any interaction, I think to myself, "She won't buy anything." Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy or maybe something in my behavior makes her not want to buy. I don't know. But my predictions are usually right.

Are you aware of any thin-slicing that you do? What decisions/conclusions/predictions do you make with little or no information?