Six Figures Blog

I have recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink – the Power of Thinking without Thinking.” The book is about how sometimes we just know things instinctively. As one reviewer makes the point, it is all about those moments when we “know” something without knowing why.

I enjoy Gladwell’s books for numerous reasons, one being that they generally include some interesting perspectives on talent attraction and retention.  Hiring talent is a complicated art, though if understood in more detail it is one that can deliver great bottom line results to organizations and a greater sense of job and personal satisfaction to workers.

Orchestra’s, Hiring & Screens
In one section of Blink, Gladwell shares and dissects various stories about the introduction of screens within the world’s orchestra’s and how they have changed the way that orchestra’s engage musicians. Prior to screens many instruments were not considered to be able to be played as well by women as men; with no justifiable reasoning for this I may add.   As a result many orchestras had a low female representation. “In the past 30 years, since screens become commonplace, the number of women in top US orchestras has increased five-fold.” A number system was used for musicians trying out for the orchestra, and with the addition of the screens, the talent of the musician (regardless of their sex) was able to be heard and focused on, to the exclusion of our eyes and our prejudices.

Sometimes Talent Does Not Need to Be Seen
This example of a blink moment is highlighted with the story of Abbie Conant, a female trombone player, who auditioned for the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra behind a screen in 1980. At this time the orchestra believed that the Trombone was a male instrument, however when Abbie auditioned (behind the screen) within a minute of hearing her play, the Concertmaster, knew that she was the person that they had to have – she had the talent. For him it was a blink moment. He did not want to audition anyone else after he heard Abbie. Unfortunately when they discovered the star Trombone player was female, the Concertmaster  and his team did everything in their power to take back the offer and prevent her playing. After 8 years Abbie was able to secure her rightful position with the Orchestra.

Our Powers of Rapid Cognition
The purpose of the story was to illustrate our rapid powers of cognition, the fact that Abbie’s talent could be identified in less than a minute by someone who has an exceptional ear.  With the screen and nothing to shroud their judgement such as appearance, biases and so on, her talent shone through. The example according to Gladwell serves to highlight how we are often careless with our powers of rapid cognition.

This led me to think about the interview process and how for many of us we may find liberation and more talent if we had a blink approach to hiring. If we were able to go with our instincts and suspended our unfounded judgements in the hiring process, how would it look?

The Impact of Appearance
In recent years there has been  research conducted which Ceridian Connection states  has shown “attractive people are assumed to be intelligent and successful, and it’s been said that as many as 50 percent of managers make their hiring decisions within the first 30 seconds of setting eyes on an applicant.

The fact that our perceptions of appearance can override and impact so heavily on our decision making, can serve to be rather problematic when hiring, particularly given next to most people’s ability to successfully perform a job is not dependant on their appearance, bar a few obvious occupations.

Would we still hire the same people if we were not able to see them?

If we were able to hire authentically would this result in more successful hires and staff retention?