TRAINING YOUR INTUITIONS FOR EXPERTISE

In Blink: The Power of thinking without Thinking (2005), Malcolm Gladwell argues that there are times when expertise manifests itself in a blink-of-an-eye. And he provides many examples of such— experts who looked at a sixth century BC statute and immediately had a gut feeling that it just did not look right; something was wrong. Yet eighteen months of analysis could not find anything wrong. But in the end, the experts were right, it was not legitimate. Their “hunch” eventually proved true (chapter 1). So with John Gottman’s ability to very quickly identify relationships that will end in divorce (chapter 2), and once tennis pro and expert, Vic Braden’s ability to recognize a good serve in the blink of an eye (chapter 3), etc.

What does all of this indicate? First, what it does not indicate. It does not mean that there is within all people an intuition about such things! Far from it. Such “intuitions” are not common or universal, they are trained. It is the intuition of a trained expert that allows him or her to do such seemingly magical things.