I was reluctant to enrol at first due to the term ‘Intuitive’. It turned out to be one of the best learning experience I have ever obtained, and it was from the Course on Intuitive Executive Coaching.
I was hesitant because it sounded un-business like, mystical and well, not so Executive. But I followed my gut-feeling and entered the course with a critical mind (I am sure my mentor could testify to that).
And that is what intuition is – to be able to critically evaluate what is in-front of you from a vast pool of data, it is to be able to take a bird’s view on a situation, and zoom-in on what is crucial. For me personally it’s not a separate experience from the ‘analytical’ but rather a complementary one.
In a study Executives were asked to indicate what they understood under the term ‘intuition’. They described it as:
– Decision or perception without recourse to logical or rational methods;
– Inherent perception;
– Inexplicable comprehension;
– A feeling that comes from within;
– Integration of previous experience; and
– Processing of accumulated information.
-‘Sixth sense’, was ascribed by an only small minority.
Intuition becomes more significant with senior management, where we can no longer rely solely on quantitive data, where problems get more complex and ambiguous and decision-making quicker.
Executives use it in decisions related to corporate strategy and planning, marketing, human resource development, research and development, public relations, investments and acquisitions, and mergers and alliances.
Intuition, or sometimes referred to as intuitive intelligence has 2 sources:
- Intuition as expertise. Explicit and implicit learning from our experiences that become part of our cognitive makeup.
- Intuition as feeling. For many people synonymous with the ‘gut feeling’.
How do intuition and rationality co-exist?
Intuition and rationality are two parallel systems of knowing, they are dual processes.
The conscious rational system has been described as intentional, analytic, primarily verbal, and relatively emotion-free; it encodes information in abstract symbols and concepts.
The intuitive system has been described as automatic, holistic, primarily non-verbal, and associated with emotion and feeling; it encodes information in concrete forms such as examples, images, stories and as unconscious decision heuristics. Research indicates that both the expertise and feeling facets of intuition originate below the level of conscious awareness and are inter-linked.
How to further develop your intuition?
The relationship between intuition and rationality can work in a number of ways. For example gut feeling may be checked out by rational analysis asking questions such as ‘Does the information back up my gut feeling?’ OR we can proceed from rational analysis to intuition in which intuition provides an expertise-based or feelings-based validation for judgments arrived at through rational analysis: We can ask: ‘What does my experience tell me about this decision?’ ‘Are there any lessons from the past that I can draw on?’ or ‘How does this decision feel to me?’
Depending on how we define the gut feeling/intuition, we are never really making purely facts based decisions. If the source of our intuition includes our previous experiences, can we ever truly exclude it from our decision-making process? I don’t believe so. However it’s important to approach every situation as a unique one so we don’t fall into trap of knowing everything already.
So, get the facts right and include your previous learning & gut feeling.
Image: Alamy, Annette Bening in The Women 2008.
Source: Sadler Smith E, Shefy E, 2004, ‘The Intuitive Executive: Understanding And Applying ‘Gut Feel’ in Decision-Making’.