How I transformed from thinking my brain was broken to realizing I had a superpower

Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink” changed my life.

Sheri Byrne-Haber, CPACC

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Brick wall with the word BLINK in allcaps in blue neon sans serif shadow text

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I am a quintessential “thin-slicer,” a personality trait that Malcolm Gladwell thoroughly explored in his book, Blink.

Thin-slicing describes a person’s ability to find patterns in events based only on “thin slices,” or narrow windows, of experience. The most interesting aspect of thin-slicing to me is that thin-slicer’s conclusions can be as accurate, or even more accurate, than judgments based on significantly more information. Thin-slicers can provide rapid inferences about the state, characteristics, or details of an individual or situation with tiny amounts of information.

Thin-slicing is effectively a super, highly honed, very accurate instinct. All good, right? Where could this possibly go wrong? Turns out, lots of places.

In technology, the ability to thin-slice can be an incredibly powerful problem-solving tool when it is recognized for the incredible positive it can be, and not punished as a bad thing that should be eliminated.

Before Malcolm Gladwell’s book came out, I didn’t even KNOW there was a label for this aspect of my personality, much less it seeing it framed as a good thing.

Here’s what I heard instead:

  1. You don’t listen.
  2. You are rude.
  3. You jump to conclusions.
  4. You can’t have possibly considered all of the data before chiming in with your opinion.
  5. You are a know-it-all (or its variant “you are always trying to demonstrate you are the smartest person in the room”).

Then I read Blink and realized all these things I had been told repeatedly since I was in 4th grade about how my brain processed data, usually characterized in very condescending and negative terms, was literally the result of the unconscious bias that…

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Sheri Byrne-Haber, CPACC

LinkedIn Top Voice for Social Impact 2022. UX Collective Author of the Year 2020. Disability Inclusion SME. Sr Staff Accessibility Architect @ VMware.