Book Review: Blink-The Power of Thinking without Thinking.

Applying the principles of Blink to coaching

The book was recommended to me by Frank Eastham. Frank is the principle at Oakland Mills high school and the Human Rights Commissioner in Howard County, Maryland. Frank recommended Blink because it reveals the importance of how we must acknowledge and assess our conscious and subconscious actions as we attempt to build deep and meaningful relationships. The book is titled Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. The author, Malcolm Gladwell, cites examples from different sources about how we think without thinking, about choices we seem to make in an instant - in the blink of an eye - that aren’t as simple as they seem. For example, our attitudes towards things like race or gender operate on two levels. On the first level we have conscious attitudes. This is what we choose to believe. On the second level of attitude, our attitude acts on a subconscious level, the immediate, automatic associations that tumble out before we’ve even had time to think. I encourage all coaches, regardless of their specific sport, to read this book.

I would like to share with you three points that I received from the book and how you can apply it to coaching.

Point #1: The Role of Contempt in a Relationship

This point was based off a study in which researchers could predict with fairly impressive accuracy who was going to get divorced and who was going to make it based on only three minutes of a couple talking.

Each couple was analyzed with a coding system that had twenty different categories of emotions. The most important emotion of those analyzed was contempt. Contempt is any statement made from a higher level. A lot of time it’s an insult: “You are a …... You’re scum.” It is so stressful that it begins to affect the functioning of your immune system. Contempt is closely related to disgust, and what disgust and contempt are about is completely rejecting and excluding someone from the community.

The role of contempt in a relationship has made me aware of the consequences in either receiving or delivering this emotion in conversation or gesture. Being able to identify this emotion has also enabled me to address it when encountered so it won’t inhibit building healthy and meaningful relationships. I understand and strive to coach with the fruit of the spirit which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Point #2: Be relationship driven

The point was exemplified by malpractice suites filed against doctors. The risk of being sued for malpractice has very little to do with how many mistakes the doctor makes. Patients tend to file lawsuits because they’ve been harmed by shoddy medical care and how they were treated on a personal level. The how is that patients were rushed, ignored or treated poorly. Their was a clear difference between those doctors who have never been sued and those that have been sued at least twice. The surgeons who had never been sued spent more than three minutes longer with each patient (18.3 vs. 15 minutes) than those who had been sued. They were more likely to make “orienting” comments, “First I’ll examine you, and then we will talk the problem over” which helps patients get a sense of what the visit is supposed to accomplish.

The analysis went even further. After analyzing the conversation between surgeon and patient, the difference in being sued or not sued was entirely how they talked to their patients. If the surgeon’s voice was judged to sound dominant, he was in the sued group. If the voice sounded less dominant and more concerned, the surgeon tended to be in the non-sued group.

In the end it comes down to a matter of respect, and the simplest way that respect is communicated is through tone of voice.

This point reinforces the importance of building a repoire with the athletes I coach. A repoire is built by observing, analyzing and evaluating. I cannot help the athlete if I don’t know the athlete.

Point #3: I must be exposed to those different than me on a regular basis.

In classical music circles, it was believed that women could not play like men. They didn’t have the strength, attitude or resilience for certain kinds of pieces. This “fact” was born out because men seemed to sound better than women in auditions according to the conductors, music directors and maestros. No one paid much attention to how the auditions were held, because it was viewed that a music expert could decipher the quality of music under any set of circumstances.

Orchestra musicians began to organize themselves politically and wanted the audition process formalized to prevent conductors from abusing their power in hiring practices. Formalizing included erecting screens between the auditioner and the committee audition committee (the committee was established to replace the conductor). An extraordinary thing happened once the new rules were put into place: orchestras began to hire women. Since screens became commonplace, the number of women hired increased fivefold.

The act of listening to someone play was corrupted. Some musicians look like they sound better than they actually sound, because of confidence and good posture. The act of listening was done with the eyes, not with their ears and heart.

When confronted with the act of their prejudice, the orchestras solved their problem. They were able to control the environment in which rapid cognition (first impressions) takes place in their unconscious.

This is a reminder that I need to see people for who they truly are. We can change our first impressions because they are generated by our experiences and our environment. We can alter the way we thin-slice, by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions. I must make an effort to be exposed to those different than me on a regular basis and be comfortable with them so I am not betrayed by my first impressions.