How
effective is your decision making? Do
you have a preference for logic and working out the rationale or do you prefer
to use your intuition and your gut feeling?
There is now a lot of research that shows the limitations of both these
approaches and it is interesting to identify our natural preference so we can
compensate for and avoid the imbalance of relying too much on one or the other.
Is there a sixth sense?
In
his excellent book ‘Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow’ Daniel Kahneman retells
the terrifying story of a team of firemen who were in the kitchen of a house that
was on fire. While hosing down the
kitchen the Commander found himself yelling “Get out of here now!” without
realising why. The whole floor of the
kitchen collapsed almost immediately after the firefighters escaped. It was only afterwards that the Commander
recalled that the fire had been unusually quiet and that his ears had been
unusually hot. He had no idea what was
wrong but these impressions prompted what he called a ‘sixth sense’. It turned
out that the heart of the fire was not in the kitchen but in the basement
beneath where the men had stood.
This
is a dramatic example of an expert using intuition to save lives. However, relying on your gut feelings for all
decision-making can lead to being very reactive and at the mercy of your
emotions. The brain is very heavily
influenced by the Amygdala which is responsible for emotions, survival
instincts and memory. It is interconnected to many parts of the brain and can
be both helpful and unhelpful depending on the situation. In the classic fight or flight situation
mentioned above it is particularly useful, but in normal day to day work there
are many times when it will be triggered by pressure, an imagined threat or
even a particular phrase or tone that relates to old memories from
childhood. These feelings need to be
recognised for what they are so we can manage and inhibit them in an
appropriate manner – if we don’t, our behaviour can become very illogical and
even irrational.
Don’t rely on one
mode of thinking
I
find that a lot of entrepreneurs use their gut feelings when selecting people
for jobs. They tend to like people who
are like them. This frequently ends up in stress and frustration because the
very people they need to run their business and implement their strategy are, more
often than not, very unlike them!
However,
if we rely on logic and analysis all the time we can neglect the answer to the
very problem we are trying to solve because we are so laser-focussed that we
are unable to hear the ‘still quiet voice’ that prompts us to do something
different. There are many examples of
ultra-rational scientists spending long hours (if not years) on a particular
problem, only to have a breakthrough when they were in a very serene, relaxed and
peaceful state and not even thinking specifically about the problem.
I
recently had a problem with my Desktop while working on my hobby of
photography. I was selecting and editing
photos using a 2Tb external hard drive because the internal hard drives on my
Desktop were almost full. When I deleted
a small subfolder that I no longer wanted, the main folder I was working in disappeared!
Somehow the 42Gb of all my Australian
holiday photos and videos were wiped off the disk. I checked and double checked but the main
folder was gone. I was convinced that it
was deleted outright because my logic told me the data could not be in the
Recycle Bin; there was no space on the internal drives. So I was sure I had lost the lot.
I
was deeply saddened and reconciling myself to the fact that I’d lost some great
photos of Sydney and video clips of diving on the Great Barrier Reef, but my
intuition told me not to switch anything off.
I left the external drive and my
desk-top running for 2 days over a long weekend until I could contact my IT
specialist. He promptly pointed me to
the Recycle Bin and I was amazed to find the Australia folder there. My logical mind had created a belief that it
couldn’t be there (because there was no space on the internal hard drive) and
this had prevented me even looking! I
was delighted to have the folder back and I learnt a bit about my computer and
a lot about my intuition and the danger of logical beliefs. The stress of the
situation and my logic had prevented me looking for the obvious and simple
solution.
The
key lesson for me was that my intuition told me not to switch anything off, not
even the external hard drive and that had saved everything. John my IT Specialist explained that if it had
been turned off it would have fulfilled the ‘instruction’ that was encoded in
the Recycle Bin to delete the folder. Fortunately
I listened carefully to my intuition. So
while all the files were marked for deletion, and were no longer visible or accessible
on the External Drive, I was able to reverse this by ‘restoring’ the folder
from the Recycle Bin.
The Paradox of
Decisions
There
is an interesting paradox in our approach to decisions. There needs to be a balance between being
analytical and intuitive. Relying on one or the other can lead to an imbalance
that will prevent getting to the best solution or making the best decision. This paradox is neatly illustrated in the
Harrison Assessment Paradox Report (see the image below) and could be
summarised by the proverb; “Use your logical mind to work out your day to day
issues, but use you inner vision to guide your direction”.
The
two main traits in this Paradox are:
Analytical: The tendency to
logically examine facts and problems, and
Intuitive: The tendency to use
"hunches" to help make decisions.
Some clients have baulked at the term ‘Hunch’ because they perceive it
as ‘Guessing’. However, in this context it
uses the Concise Oxford Dictionary definition of premonition or intuitive
feeling.
Analysis
and intuition are actually mental powers used to gain understanding and
insight. They are not mutually exclusive. The analytical processes use the left
half of the brain and the intuitive processes use the right half of the brain.
Analytical thinking is beneficial for complex problems when logic is required.
However, some situations have many unknown (or unknowable) variables and
therefore require intuitive decisions.
If
there is an imbalance where we have strong Analytical but low Intuition we
become ‘Laser Logical’. This can give us
a one-track mind with tunnel-focus that can miss the subtle interconnections
and memories of the millions of mental maps that are stored in our brain. For
example a very quiet voice, like a distant memory, was telling me not to switch
off my Desktop or disconnect the hard drive – perhaps it was a memory below my
conscious awareness. But my logical mind
prevented me from looking in the obvious place – the Recycle Bin.
If
there is an imbalance where we have strong Intuition but low Analytical
contrasting we get ‘Non-logical’ thinking and behaviour, this can be seen as ungrounded
or superstitious. If both of these
traits are low we become a ‘Disinterested Decision-maker’ who is neither
Analytical nor Intuitive. This can lead
to insufficient investigation of issues before making decisions.
A
person with strength in both of these traits has ‘Logical Intuition’; they can simultaneously
make use of both sides of their brain by being equally Analytical and
Intuitive. They avoid the limitations of
being narrowly logical (Laser Logic) by learning to explore hunches, inner
feelings and the ‘quiet voice’ inside. They also avoid the pitfalls of being
Non-logical by using their rational mind to evaluate, verify and explain their
intuitive thoughts and feelings. The ‘Logical
Intuitive’ person incorporates both the capacities of analysis and intuition in
order to make effective decisions.
Are there Gender
Differences?
There
is still a lot of debate in certain circles about the perceived gender
differences between men and women, with men being supposedly more logical and
women being more intuitive. While some
studies show that there are more connections between brain hemispheres in women and more connections from the front to the back in each hemisphere
in men, there are many caveats and problems with the sample size and subject
age in these studies. The brain still
holds many mysteries, so for now all we can say for sure is that the
differences between the brain in any man and woman are as wide ranging as any
man and another man or a woman and another woman. This is mainly due to the infinite variables
that affect brain development throughout our lives. Of course this is only valid until a study
comes along to refute it!
The
concept behind these Paradoxes allows us to explore the principles of the
opposing traits and how we can exercise more of both. It is not about doing less of what you
naturally prefer; it is about looking at any imbalances and learning ways to
improve the balance between them. This
can be achieved by greater self-awareness, being open to feedback and a
willingness to improve.
So
I invite you to explore your preferences and the preferences of your Directors
and Managers. How do you, and the teams
you are a member of, go about making decisions?
What will you need to do in order to exercise more Logical Intuition and
have more balanced versatility in your approach?
If
you are interested in exploring where you and your managers stand on this
Paradox and the eleven other Paradoxes in the assessment just contact Amanda at
info@InspiredWorking.com.
With best regards
David Klaasen
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