When we all accept the growing importance of knowledge in the economy of our century, and we also consider the contribution of emotions to individual and collective performance unquestionable, it seems appropriate to remove intuition from that semi-secrecy to which we had condemned it. Although it seems that she is the one who chooses us, it is a resource within our reach that we could better cultivate, for the benefit of the decisions we make, the solutions we propose, the relationships we maintain, the judgments we make, the improvements and innovations that the market demands of us, the detection of opportunities…
Being multiple in its manifestations and in the reserves from which it is nourished, intuition constitutes a valuable complement to reason, with which it is worthwhile to become more familiar. If we can accept that we are not making the best use of our conscious mind, we can equally insist that the unconscious has a potential that we are aiming for. There is much more within us than meets the eye, and it is surely worth looking out to see.
Although I wrote some daring first words on the subject in 1998, I then had an impulse to approach intuitive phenomena at the beginning of 2003, limiting myself, of course, to the world of business. So I concentrated my first conclusions on an article that, after being published in two magazines, was disseminated on the Internet.
The encouraging messages I received in my e-mail showed me the interest that this faculty aroused, but they also made me feel a certain compunction, because I did not feel capable of adding much to the little already said: in a way, I felt compelled to continue reconciling other commitments with the study of intuitive contributions in the company.
Being an engineer, I saw myself breaking into a kind of terra incognita reserved perhaps for psychologists, who seem the most suitable professionals to help develop intrapersonal or interpersonal skills. A fellow consultant and psychologist, Beatriz Valderrama, guided and encouraged me in the pursuit, and I was also invited to participate as a speaker at the Manager Business Forum in Madrid (2005). What I gather in the following paragraphs is precisely the content of this recent presentation, while my colleague and I try to add one more book to those that already address the subject. Naturally, there are many great experts who have studied man, his evolution, his mind and his senses, including intuition; But perhaps we should better connect with the daily world of the company, which every day demands more powers and resources from us.
After going to dictionary definitions and others from prestigious experts, in the presentation I wanted to insist that intuition is plural, as suggested by Jagdish Parikh: it takes different forms (words, ideas, images, sensations and even epiphanies), it feeds on different reserves (consciousness, experience, the inherited unconscious, the acquired one…), it appears suddenly but we could also speak of intuitive states, it is considered a faculty of the mind but also a gift or a character trait… It also seems to me that perhaps we were more intuitive hundreds of thousands of years ago, in the preverbal period, perhaps because we were also more collective and less individual.
But, what is the role of intuition in the profiles of managers and knowledge workers, in the economy of the 21st century? In this information and computer society, it sometimes seems that technology will lead us, by itself, to the desired levels of productivity and competitiveness; But we must remember that information and communication technologies (ICT) only provide us with access to this fundamental raw material that is information: we have to be the ones who do the complex translation of information into knowledge, after searching and select the most relevant and enriching from what is offered to us.
For the step - we would say that it is a kind of hiatus - from information to knowledge, we follow five stages: access, consultation, learning, maturation and application. Well then, intuition, if it were not already present in the access, it would be in the consultation (in the examination-evaluation of each information, in the discovery of interesting things even if they do not respond to the search pattern…), it would be in the learning (getting the meaning of the signifiers right, reading between the lines, detecting connections…), it would be in maturation (advancing in the connections, integrating the new knowledge with the previous one, elaborating abstractions…), and it would still be in the application or diffusion of learned knowledge.
We have deployed the five stages that lead from information to knowledge in a total of 16 specific steps, and the mistakes made in each step are carried over into the following: that is why we need a whole series of informational competences (some operational and others of a personal nature), among which we cannot forget intuition.
But if intuition is needed for the passage from information to knowledge, there is no doubt that we need it in other key gaps in the age of knowledge: the passage from knowledge to action, and the passage from knowledge itself to innovation..
It goes without saying that intuition accompanies us, to a greater or lesser degree, in all decision making; nor in its solid pairing with the necessary empathy in interpersonal relationships; nor that, in our work performance, we sometimes (hopefully it were more often) in intuitive states of high performance, in which everything goes well and it seems that something or someone is giving us clues: it is the state of flow, studied by Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and of which other authors speak to us to relate it to intuition.
Nor does it seem necessary to insist on linking innovation with intuitive phenomena, because examples flood us. In the presentation I referred to Elias Howe's sewing machine, Sony's Walkman, Einstein, Pasteur, the serendipity behind many inventions or discoveries… There are certainly at least three hiatuses, perhaps not well resolved, in economics of knowledge and innovation: information-knowledge, knowledge-professional performance, and knowledge-innovation.
Intuition can contribute to the desirable continuity towards the desired prosperity: it becomes a plus, an essential complement, for our conscious knowledge and for our intelligence. Intuition is said to be the "crown jewel" of intelligence.
Obviously, everything that seems to shine as such is not intuition, and I also insisted on this in the presentation. Intuition could merge -but should not be confused- with concerns, desires, inferences, assumptions, occurrences, apprehensions, prejudices, beliefs, fears… I finished the presentation without time to elaborate on some things that, Being within our reach, we can all do to favor the help that intuition gives us:
- Read books and articles of interest about intuition. Review your beliefs and values, related to your work. Focus on each activity living the "here and now." Practice reflective thinking by giving yourself moments of silence. In addition to managing your time well, manage Entrust work to the subconscious and pay attention to the results Try to better perceive your own and other people's realities: open your mind Deepen in the problems until you understand them well Ask yourself more, and take advantage of all your faculties Observe the mechanisms of your intuition and become familiar with them. Fill yourself with legitimate purpose, and commitment to achieve it. Reconcile your intuitions with reason, and cultivate both.
Everything seems obvious, in the first reading, but in a second we can give more meaning to the signifiers. I do not extend myself further, but I invite you to cultivate your intuition and share your experiences in this regard. I would say that human beings seem to waste many of their faculties, since the survival of the species is assured; and also that we deserve a failure in the last tests of evolution… Thank you, the reader, for your attention.
