Management Perspectives

No one needs a reminder that today’s working world is tough. Uncertainty, complexity, and lack of clarity are all made tougher with time-pressure and constant new demands. Organisations everywhere have been searching for additional management tools that will help leaders rise above these ambiguous and difficult conditions. And in particular, tools that will ensure everyone makes good decisions often on little or opaque information while actively avoiding bad ones. There is a strategy and resource to do that which is so often ignored: intuition. Intuition’s importance is evidenced by research that shows 69 out of 70 CEOs, when asked, said, they use it all the time. Intuition is needed now more than ever because empirical data also shows that it helps people to:

• Assess and judge risks more accurately,
• Problem-solve more effectively, and
• Deliver better and more strategic decisions.

If you think about it, these are the core activities of anyone in a management or executive role. So, why is it so seldom mentioned in global leadership literature? It is partly because few leaders talk about its importance. That is for two reasons: either they feel that gut feelings are not appropriate or they would rather hide their secret sauce. No one is going to share a superpower if it is going to increase a potential rival’s personal competitive advantage. And then there are the myths to also overcome.

MYTH 1: You’ve got it or you haven’t. Intuition is a bit like mathematics. Not everyone is going to solve Fermat’s last theorem, but everyone can add two plus two and then build from there. In my experience, anyone can improve their intuition by recognising their highly individual cues. Those cues include what comes to mind, your gut and heart response, level of energy, sense of attraction, aversion, attention, or alignment. You just need to tune into your physical and mental responses to a situation particularly if you are hesitating between ‘go’ or ‘no go’. Investigate any niggle or repeated feeling of doubt because’ essentially that is telling you that something is off. But is it? Checking out the small things and being right build a sense of trust in your process and an ability to extend your practice.

Myth 2: It is hard to distinguish intuition from other thought processes. If you are aware of your intuitive cues you will be much less likely to confuse intuition with creative thought, idle speculation, wishful thinking, ego, projections, and general internal brain chatter. Intuition, most often, is a small quiet feeling or sense of knowing whether something is right or wrong. There are no judgments attached to it and little emotion. And this sense will simply keep coming back to you. If you have ever gone against your intuition and hired the wrong person, you know just what I mean: you would have had the thought not to do it several times before you signed their contract.

It probably wouldn’t have been loud or shouty, you just knew that you shouldn’t proceed. It is true that it is harder to recognise intuition in HALT circumstances—when you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. If you are under pressure to decide in any of those moments, walk away from your decision. Literally. Meditate, exercise, cook, play an instrument, or do anything that does not involve a screen. Then try something like flipping a mental coin and seeing not which side it lands on but which one you would like it to land on while it is in the air. That is your intuition at work.

Myth 3: Intuition is just bias. Both intuition and bias have similar processes; they are shortcuts to thinking and allow you swift access to answers. And both may result in the same sense of clarity and confidence. But there are some important differences. Bias usually entails a preconceived notion or prejudicial way of deciding. You know that it is bias if you are cherry-picking data, discounting contrary evidence, and searching to confirm a point of view you are unwilling to change. But biased thinking should also dissipate when challenged with logic and rigour: just seeing that there are other possible answers usually helps someone see things differently.

One way around bias is to use principles and parameters, for example ‘three of us have to agree’ and ‘we can afford to experiment up to $10,000’. If you’ve used both and you then keep having the thought, “this makes me feel unsure,” then you should probably check it out; it is much more likely to be your intuition. If you still really cannot tell, sleep on it because incubation often gives us answers. And try asking two or three other people what they think. Diversity in your thinking process always adds additional perspectives.

Myth 4: Intuition is unscientific and risky. When I started my journey to understand more about intuition, I read literally hundreds of published papers. There is plenty of research and evidence around it in the fields of psychology, neurology, philosophy, biology, consciousness, and cognition. This list shows you what a complex topic it is and how it crosses into so many domains. But that it is a very real process was demonstrated back in the ’90s with Antonio Damasio’s classic Iowa gambling task experiment. Volunteers had to select cards from rigged decks. After only 10 cards, as participants pondered riskier choices, galvanic skin responses showed that their palms started to sweat. But it took on average 40 cards to articulate their intuition about the decks and 80 cards to be certain.

This experiment clearly showed what so many people know. First, your body can detect information much faster than you can consciously process it. And second, the best intuitions are accurate and productive. When people think their intuition has let them down, what I have noticed is that it was not intuition in the first place. It was more often guesswork, self-deception, wishful thinking, stress, or emotional pressure. When you feel fresh and clear-minded you’re far more likely to hear your intuition for what it is. When you are tired and overwhelmed that’s hard.

Myth 5: Intuition is always right. Nothing in life is always right. That includes those lovingly worked spreadsheets packed with multiple variables—and intuition is no different. To get the best results you need to apply your intuition to your analyses and analyse your intuitions or at least get data to back them up. It does not matter which comes first but without this joint approach you are only using half a process. And you need feedback. You will hone your accuracy if you start to record your intuitions and see where you were right or wrong. As Bill Gates said, when asked about his use of intuition on CNN, “I’m often wrong but my batting record is good enough that I keep swinging every time the ball is thrown.” And his success speaks for itself