Malcolm Gladwell speaks about recognising experts' instinctive judgement at Leaders in Dubai forum

Malcolm Gladwell told delegates at the IIR Leaders in Dubai Business Forum 2007 that there was nothing wrong with the planes or maintenance of planes that had crashed - the fault lay with the pilots in a cultural hierachical system that made it difficult for a subordinate to express an honest opinion about his superiors in difficult situations.

His main theme was about the need to recognise and protect the ability of experts to make sound judgements on an instinctive basis. It took more than 10 years for them to gain enough experience on which to make good instinctive judgement calls, but once they had reached this stage, their opinions should be valued, even though in many cases they could not give a rational explanation about why they had come to the decision they had.

Experts should not be overloaded with information when there is a need for a quick decision because it can dull their instinctive judgement powers.

Mr Gladwell used an analogy relating to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles where art expects intuitively knew on first sight that a $10m Greek statue was fake, even though the museum has spent 14 months painstakingly validating its providence.

Research into how to improve the diagnostic ability of doctors in emergency rooms for patients presenting with chest pains showed better results were achieved when the doctors were limited to four pieces of information only - was there fluid on the lungs; was the pain stable or unstable; what was the patient's blood pressure and what were the results of the ECG.

Protecting experts from outside bias was another important factor in good instinctive decision making, he said, citing the situation in the US, where it had been recognised that a sole police officer made better decisions than those travelling in pairs.

Leaders in Dubai Business Forum 2007 is supported by Founding Sponsors: Citi Private Bank and Nokia; Leading Master Developer: Dubai Properties; Headline Sponsors: Addax Bank, Bidaya and The Monarch Dubai; Supporting Sponsors: Omniyat, Ithmar Capital, Al Barari, Damac Properties and Dubai Real Estate; Official Technology Partner: Fujitsu Siemens; Knowledge Partner: SP Jain; Official Event Courier: TCS.