'The power of the glance'.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Raul C. Pangalangan

"BLINK: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" has been on the New York Times list of best sellers for 16 weeks, and currently ranks second. Author Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote the earlier global chart-buster, "The Tipping Point," says that snap judgments "can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately"-we block out the irrelevant and reduce a complex situation to what he calls a "thin slice" of reality. "[T]here can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis." The whole book is about "the first two seconds" after intuition kicks in.

Brilliant generals were known to possess "the power of the glance," or coup d'oeil, the ability to make sense of the battlefield. Basketball players are said …