The Power of Intuition Intuition often is your best weapon in business
When was the last time you had a gut feeling about a particular business issue but didn't listen to your intuition and then soon regretted your decision?
Do you frequently doubt your intuition and rely solely on empirical evidence as the basis for your decisions? If so, you may be underutilizing one of your most powerful business weapons: your intuitive intelligence.
Those of us who work in the areas of organizational development, business management have a tendency to place a substantial amount of credence on IQ and EQ (emotional intelligence) when, in fact, intuitive intelligence (sometimes referred to as intrapersonal intelligence) is a critical success factor for any business person.
"Intuition" is derived from the Latin word "intueri," defined as "looking within." Intuition otherwise is also defined as "the power or facility of attaining direct knowledge without evident rational thought."
That is a tremendously powerful concept, particularly when applied to business and your personal success strategy. Having an intuitive experience is like having a conversation with truth and sourcing one's own higher power.
Many people believe that if they are not creative, they do not possess a propensity for intuitive thinking. They assume that intuition, like creativity, is a right-brained function. However, whereas various intelligence and skills typically are relegated to the "left brain" or "right brain," intuition is a "whole brain" function.
The part of the brain called the corpus collusum is the dense network of nerves that connect your left and right brain (the cerebral cortex); it is within the corpus collusum that higher thinking -- and intuition -- occurs.
According to studies the moment we enter a strange room or situation, our brains immediately begin to assess and integrate the input from all higher thinking, the input from all five senses and our entire lifetime of experience. "Within milliseconds," your brain analyzes the situation, compares it to your lifetime of experience, and gives you a spontaneous 'gut level' feeling about your environment. Either you've judged 'safe' and you feel relaxed and comfortable, or you've judged 'threatened' and you feel nervous, or on edge. All of this occurs on a non rational level as an instant 'ah-ha' feeling."
Whereas employers consistently have rated communication skills as the most-desirable business asset, this appears to be changing. Top executives frequently attribute up to 80 percent of their success to intuition, and that high levels of intuitive intelligence often are found in the top tiers of organizations.
Traits often found in those with high intuitive intelligence include: an awareness of one's personal value system, a healthy awareness of one's own feelings, an ability for self-direction and self-management, a powerful level of self-trust, a desire for innovation, a refined knowledge of one's strengths and weaknesses, and a high degree of self-regard.
Developing your intuitive intelligence requires work -- and patience. First, be aware of the intuitive abilities you already have in your repertoire. Do you experience any of the following?
1. Hunches
2."Gut" feelings
3. An inner voice
4. Dreams
5. Déjà vu
6. Precognition
7. A sense of "butterflies," discomfort, or other sensation when in certain situations or around certain people
8. A sense of insightfulness
Intuitive exercises can be helpful, but put your innate sense of intuition to work for you as often as possible. For example, when faced with a significant business decision, make two lists: one outlining the facts and objective data, and the other listing your feelings and "gut" reactions to the decision. Get comfortable making the decision based on your gut instinct and see what happens -- You'll be pleasantly surprised.
As you become more comfortable with the results of your intuitive decision making, you also will learn to trust and develop your intuitive intelligence. Couple this intelligence with your intellect and EQ and you now possess the ability to quickly soar to the pinnacle of your success.
Organizations across the board must begin to take a humanistic and holistic approach to the complexities of their business issues in order to maintain a competitive advantage and grow to new levels of success.
Intuitive intelligence at its highest form of development enables the savvy business person or entrepreneur to use his or her arsenal of intellect, empirical evidence, skills, competencies and experience to intuit the correct application of these tools for the optimal outcome.
The Power of Intuition
There are different kinds of intuition, and we carry these capacities within us. They are always active to some extent but we don't notice them because we don't pay enough attention to what is going on in us.
Behind the emotions, deep within the being, in a consciousness seated somewhere, there is a sort of prescience, a kind of capacity for foresight, but not in the form of ideas: rather in the form of feelings, almost a perception of sensations.
For instance, when one is going to decide to do something, there is sometimes a kind of uneasiness or inner refusal, and usually, if one listens to this deeper indication, one realises that it was justified.
The power of intuition in decision making
As our life becomes more dynamic and less structured, intuition gains more and more recognition as an essential decision making tool. You have probably heard of experienced decision makers who are able to directly recognize the best option or course of action in many tricky situations.
The solution just comes to them from somewhere in their subconscious mind, instead of being a result a lengthy chain of logical derivations.
Yes, intuition can make you a much more effective decision maker, especially when you deal with non-standard situations or in expedient decision making. Yet, before you put more weight on intuitive choices, there are a few important points you need to keep in mind.
When do you need intuition?
1. Decision making situations where intuitive approach can help most include the following.
2. Expedient decision making and rapid response are required. The circumstances leave you no time to go through complete rational analysis.
3. Fast paced change. The factors on which you base your analysis change rapidly.
4. The problem is poorly structured.
5. The factors and rules that you need to take into account are hard to articulate in an unambiguous way.
6. You have to deal with ambiguous, incomplete, or conflicting information.
7. There is no precedent.
What is intuition?
First, what do we mean by intuition in the context of decision-making? While different definitions emphasize different aspects, there are three key features that characterize the intuitive mode of thinking.
The process is dominated by your subconscious mind, even if you use your conscious mind to formulate or rationalize the final results.
The information is processed in parallel rather than sequentially. Instead of going through a logical sequence of thoughts one by one, you see the situation more as a whole, with different fragments emerging in parallel.
You are more connected with your emotions. For example, it may occur to you that an option you consider does not feel right, even though there is no clear logic to prove that.
Intuition versus rational analysis
The main alternative to the intuition-based approach is rational thinking. The rational decision making process relies mostly on logic and quantitative analysis. You consciously analyze all the options. You formulate the main criteria for judging the expected outcomes of your options and you assign certain weights to those criteria to reflect their relative importance. Then, based on the expected outcomes and their weights, you rate your options by their perceived utility.
Finally, you choose the option that has the highest rating. If, for some options, the expected outcomes involve uncertainty, you will also need to incorporate in your ratings the perceived probabilities of different possibilities, or even simulation.
Rational analysis still plays crucial role in many situations, especially when you have clear criteria and have to deal with extensive quantitative data, like quantitative finance. Yet, you will likely face even more business situations where the rational decision making becomes impractical.
How it works
The simplest way to make sense of why and how intuition works is to think of it as an advanced pattern recognition device. Your subconscious mind somehow finds links between your new situation and various patterns of your past experiences.
You may not recall most of the details of those experiences. And even if you did, it may be very hard to express the lessons you learnt in a form acceptable for analytical reasoning. Yet, your subconscious mind still remembers the patterns learnt. It can rapidly project your new circumstances onto those patterns and send you a message of wisdom. That message comes as your inner voice and will most likely be expressed in the language of your feelings.
For example, some of the options or solutions you consider may not feel right to you.
How to use intuition effectively
The first important thing to keep in mind is that even when you rely on intuition it is still very important to do your homework. The intuition will help you navigate faster through much of unstructured data and can work around certain gaps and conflicts in the available information. Yet, even intuition can be misled if too many of your facts are wrong or missing.
Pay attention to your emotional state. If you are stressed or in a bad mood, your true inner voice will be distorted or lost in the background of your strong negative feelings. A similar effect may happen with strong positive feelings. If you want to hear your inner voice, get over the background of your strong feelings. Feel them through or let them go. Take a walk. Do something refreshing. Say your prayers. Forgive and accept. Sigh.
Unclutter your mind.
Finally, you can greatly increase the quality of your intuitive decisions if you include certain elements of the analytical approach. In particular, try to follow the procedure of the rational analysis first. As much as you can, capture on paper the ideas on the main options and the criteria for evaluating your choices. Write down the key facts and factors you need to keep in mind.
Following this procedure is an effective way to feed your subconscious mind with all the relevant data it needs. You will help yourself even more if you put all those notes together on paper as a mind map. By having all the important points written in one place you will also unclutter your mind. At that stage you are much more ready to listen to your inner voice.
