In Think Twice, Michael J. Mauboussin offers a gentle rebuke to Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, reports Susan Berfield in BusinessWeek (12/21/09). Where Malcolm endorsed "decisions made in the blink of an eye," Michael says this is advisable only if you practice "blinking" in a disciplined way. He also cautions that making decisions based on intuition works only in "stable environments, where conditions remain largely unchanged, where feedback is clear, and where cause-and-effect relationships are linear."

Citing psychologist Daniel Kahneman, Michael identifies two kinds of decision-making: One is "fast, automatic and difficult to control," while the other is "slower, serial and takes effort." So, while Michael believes it's possible to "train our gut to produce more reliable results," he also thinks "it's better ... simply to recognize the limits of intuition." He writes: "To make good decisions, you frequently must think twice -- and that's something our minds would rather not do." He also believes we tend to underestimate the role of the workplace itself in our decision-making.

As evidence, he cites a Harvard Business school study of "acclaimed equity analysts" over a ten-year period. The study found that the performance of these star analysts tended to decline as they moved to different firms. In other words, we tend to give too much credit to talent and not enough to circumstances. As Michael puts it: "We tend to observe financially successful companies and attach attributes ... to that success, and recommend that others embrace" the same attributes. But we're only deluding ourselves.