What Does Your Gut Tell You? (Wendy Samson and Curt Swenson, 2016)
Do you ever over-deliberate? Does it take twice as long for you to make decisions as those around you? Are you criticized for being overly analytical? If so, you might want to hone your intuitive decision making skills.
Intuition? But isn’t that just hocus pocus? Don’t only certain people have strong intuitive abilities – kind of like ESP? And isn’t it true that analytical decision making, using hard data, is the only real way to make good decisions? Wrong!
Every fully functioning person has the ability to make intuitive decisions and there is nothing magical nor mysterious about this important skill. In fact, the definition of intuition is simply using your past experiences to recognize patterns of behavior and consequence. So why is this type of decision-making so important?
According to Gary Klein, decision-making researcher and author of the 2004 bestseller, The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to Make Better Decisions at Work, human beings utilize intuitive decision-making at least 3x more frequently in our daily work environment, than we do the analytical type. Additionally, intuitive decision-making lends itself to more effective judgment calls when addressing people’s behavior in real time. It also requires less time and is informed by just as much data.
Many professionals who get stuck in relying only on analytics, can be rendered ineffective when they can’t “pull the trigger” and make that final decision intuitively. Of course, this does not replace analytical decision-making, which plays an integral part of any well run organization, but those professionals who are good at both types are found to be the most effective employees and leaders.
To illustrate this, think about the time you saw a newly hired employee behave negatively in a workplace situation and you somehow knew that they would repeat that bad behavior again. You realized very clearly, that without intervention, they would eventually need to be let go. Later you would tell a co-worker, “I can’t explain it. I just knew at that moment, that they were not going to work out unless I addressed the issue immediately.” And you were right! Oftentimes, intuitive decision-making seems instantaneous and therefore “magical and mysterious”. But if you really examine why you were able to make those determinations, it is because you recognized a pattern in that person that you had seen in others, using your past experiences. You then used that “past experience data” to extrapolate correctly what the end result might be.
So how can we further develop our intuitive decision-making skills? Like any good skill, you have to practice in real time. So when you are facing a decision-making situation, ask yourself the following questions:
Have I seen this before?
Is this typical or unusual?
Are the situational responses appropriate?
Am I hearing alarm bells?
What was my first thought when assessing the situation?
Finally, after you have made your intuitive decision, no matter what the outcome, use it as a scenario for a group case study with your team members. De-brief the situation with them and then ask, “What would you have done differently and what do you think worked well?” With practice and evaluation, you can improve your intuitive decision making skills.
Will you try it? What does your gut tell you?