Making an Impact through Intuition

Abstract The main idea of this chapter is that the informed and intelligent use of intuition can create positive impact for individuals and organizations as well as wider society and the economy. In order for this to happen, intuition needs to be cultivated and nurtured, and this can be achieved by (in alphabetical order): ‘coaching’ (to build expertise), ‘debiasing’ (to overcome errors), ‘diagnosing’ (to find out what your preferred thinking style is), ‘incubating’ (to put the unconscious mind to work on a problem), ‘inferring’ (to come up with an inference-to-best-explanation), ‘integrating, imagining, and iterating’ (to build on the complementary strengths of intuition and analysis), ‘interocepting’ (to hone intuitive awareness), ‘interpreting’ (to make sense of intuitions), ‘learning’ (to understand when intuition works and when it does not), ‘practising’ (because quality, not just quantity, of practice makes perfect), and ‘seeking feedback’ (because taking intuitive decisions without feedback is one of the best ways to develop bad intuitions). ‘Intuitive intelligence’ is a vital component of management and leadership; the ability to recognize if, when, and how to ‘go with your gut’ is one of the keys to impactful performance in the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous workplaces of the twenty-first century.