There are bold, brave decisions in companies - not all of us would make them - that are right, lead to success and even exceed expectations: congratulations to those who take them; then the epinicio can be intoned or not, but the triumph gives the right to savor, without incurring complacency.
And there are, of course, other big decisions that are wrong and even spoil the good running of the company. In these cases the error is usually not recognized; indeed, the blame is often attributed to the market and, rather than lamenting, it is necessary to resolve the situation. But why has this or that been decided? What moves us to each decision, big or small, or to each taking of position? What role, if not, does intuition play?
I was recently invited as a speaker to some interesting Business Update Conference held at the Hilton hotel in Buenos Aires, and organized by the Centro de Capacitación & Empresa, in the Argentine capital. I learned there - from the main speaker and coordinator, José María Quirós, as from the rest of the speakers - a lot about the problems of the small and medium-sized business entrepreneur; But there was also space for me to address the 600 participants, talking about intuitive phenomena in business practice.
We know that, in general, managers are usually satisfied with almost all their decisions, and it seems that we only condemn the lack of decision, the cowardice, the immobility; but I thought it was worth reflecting more on it, and on the successes and errors derived from it.
In truth, what leads us to decide what to do is sometimes very complex, and generates very different reflections, local and systemic, superficial and deep, wicked and innocuous; It is possible, of course, to meditate on the presence and role of this special human resource: intuition.
We have to consider their role in all our professional performance: in communication, information management, problem solving, looking for opportunities, the task itself, the necessary knowledge of ourselves and of course in the essential innovation; but it is in making important decisions, perhaps innovative ones, where we risk the competitiveness and prosperity of the company. All over the world, entrepreneurs are admitting the importance of intuition, and even Bill Gates does so openly.
To get the what, how or when associated with big decisions right, we must perceive current and future realities: we must not miss anything important, nor can we be confused by the irrelevant. We have to attend to the visible and the underlying, slow down the inferences, reconcile optimism with realism, extract the authentic meanings of the many signifiers, analyze antecedents and consequences, consider opportunities, make self-criticism…
Our intellectual capacities require a plus, a special resource that handles information in its purest form, that manages suitable considerations: genuine intuition, which can also accompany us in daily decisions. This power may be familiar to us, but we may not be making sufficient use of it.
I became interested in intuition in the company at the end of the 90s, but it was in 2003 when I published a modest article in two printed magazines for executives (Direction and Progress, and Training & Development Digest), and later on Internet portals, where still appears. The feedback received revealed my interest in the subject and encouraged me to get closer to this faculty of the mind, difficult to define, which generates different types of signals, seems to draw from different sources, and constitutes a valuable complement to our intelligence.. Although we do not enjoy special gifts of clairvoyance or telepathy, we can get more help from intuition in solving our concerns.
Perhaps we have to attenuate other voices in order to better listen to this one, and we must strive to favor its appearance, recognize it and interpret it well, and submit it to reason, but it is worth it: your help can make a difference.
If we have already achieved a certain sensitivity towards emotions and the so-called emotional intelligence in the company, it seems equally appropriate to take intuition out of hiding, at least to talk about it.
But, will the study of intuition serve, I asked myself, to increase the professional effectiveness of entrepreneurs, managers and knowledge workers? First, I believed that being somewhat more enlightened on the subject would not generate noticeable changes in our effectiveness; But then I thought that everything depended on how the reflection on this phenomenon was directed, and I tried to locate intuition in our daily mental scenario. In the following paragraphs I summarize my dissertation.
Two cases to consider
I looked at two well-known cases of momentous decisions: one was a great success, the other a resounding failure. I am referring to Sony's Walkman, in 1979, and Coca Cola's New Coke in 1985: I believe that their teachings are universal, regardless of the size and sector of the company. I observed, from the information I accessed on the Internet, a sensible difference between the aspiration or intention of Masaru Ibuka (then honorary president) and that of Roberto Goizueta (chief executive of the American company); the former wanted to make it easier for young people to enjoy music, even while walking or riding their bicycles, and the latter apparently wanted to neutralize the advance of its competitor, Pepsi, which had been threatening Coca Cola's leadership.
In addition, and to highlight differences, in the first case the Sony technicians did not seem to trust at all in the success of the initiative, which was finally carried out by decision of Akio Morita, the company's chief executive, infected with the solid conviction, intuitive, from Ibuka. In the American company, the entire management team seemed convinced of the initiative, after the taste tests carried out: a fully rational decision, but not for that reason the right one.
Apparently, Ibuka came across, suddenly and by chance - while passing through the development laboratory - with a valuable response to an expectation not yet declared in the market and that he seemed to have already registered in his unconscious; the connection between this and consciousness was produced by observing an evolutionary prototype of the Pressman (portable recorder for journalists) that engineers had dismissed.
As is known, the explosion in sales of the new Walkman was historic, spectacular, unthinkable. Goizueta, on the other hand, sought to maintain Coca Cola's leadership in the market and, since the Pepsi flavor was preferred in the blind tests, he did not hesitate to change the formula until the new one surpassed the competitor and the own classic formula.
Now that I think about it, it's as if my grandmother had changed her traditional recipe for tripe a la Madrid in her last years: for me they were the best and my mother continued to make them in the same way; the fact is that the classic formula turned out to be an untouchable icon for Americans, and they lacked sensitivity, intuition, to perceive it. From this comparison I drew some inferences:
- that intuition seems to depend on intention; that rational excess seems to silence its voice; that chance seems to be asking for an opportunity; that an intuited innovation seems safer; that, to be heard, the intuitive must have some authority; that the market always has expectations in gestation.
Psychologists have surely already related the appearance of intuition to the type of purposes pursued, but I actually came to think that certain aspirations, certain ways - more autotelic or vocational - of living business activity, promote intuition, such as they also promote professional satisfaction; and that other ways of living the company, more exotic, more oriented to doing business, distance themselves from the intuitive contribution and prosperity. I believe that the faculty that occupies us has a lot to do with the attention we pay to what we do, with penetrating reflection on professional activity and service to society, with customer satisfaction and with order in our conscience.
After studying these cases and others, I considered it significant that intuition helped us in the contribution to social welfare, and that the market also generated implicit expectations that it seemed willing to make explicit; in other words, that intuition served innovation and progress. Neuroscience would better explain all this, and we will have to be attentive to its progress; but intuition sometimes seems like a treasure that Indiana Jones would pursue - the fruit of meritorious effort - and at other times it presents itself without seeking it, as a gift, in case of need. Their role in scientific innovation and discovery goes without saying; perhaps only to insist that sometimes it is allied with serendipity - that is, with chance - and sometimes with causality.
Four cardinal variables
In search of effectiveness, I thought it was interesting to relate some cardinal variables that determine the professional results of the individual. Considering relatively fixed in each case the knowledge that we treasure, the intelligence that we have, the mental schemes that characterize us, the values that we profess…, that is, our competence profile, it seemed appropriate to highlight four important elements related to our psychic energy and already referred to, which, like the wind, are changeable and can appear with different intensity and direction; I mean:
- The intention that moves us The attention we dedicate The possible intuition The resulting action.
Knowledge enables us to act, and we do so, in effect, from what we know, from the decision that moves us and from the reason that assists us; this - reason - sometimes allows dictates of intuition, or modulates them; In each matter, task or function that we develop, the revealing intuition is proportional to the attention that we dedicate to it; this -attention-, although subject to interference, seems to be at the service of our intentions, that is, of the goals, global or partial, chosen…
Whether you follow me with assent or not, we will probably agree that we have focused on four fundamental points that, if not determined, contribute to the effectiveness of entrepreneurs, managers and knowledge workers.
After the event in Buenos Aires, I learned about the studies of Professor Masaru Emoto, who seems to come to show that nature appreciates our best thoughts, emotions and intentions: I would say that, in this way and at least, intuition helps us more.
Indeed, I thought it necessary to observe the intuition in this scenario of endogenous variables, and also displaying and in parallel functions, often overlapping or concurrent, of our professional performance:
- Interpersonal communication. The study of information. The perception of realities. The completion of tasks. Problem solving. Decision-making. Creativity and innovation. The search for opportunities…
Like love, intuition does not have a schedule (or a date on the calendar, as the Venezuelan song says): it can, yes, always appear, in everything we do. We usually associate it, in the company and above all, with the making of important decisions and the essential innovation, but it accompanies our intelligence on a daily basis when examining documents and various information, when interviewing, when meeting, when immersing ourselves in reflection, when concentrating on homework, studying new possibilities, designing an action plan…
Thinking about discovering and innovating, history offers us very striking cases of intuitive contribution, and we can remember Pasteur, Einstein, Edison, Kekulé…, for not going back to Antiquity. But surely we all know more close cases, and our own experience can also be very instructive.
Within us there is knowledge deposited at different levels of consciousness; there is, if we prefer it that way, explicit, tacit and intuitive knowledge; but we hardly know ourselves, and sometimes we are not even very aware of our professional and personal goals. Returning to those four variables associated with our psychic energy, let us dwell a little more on these, on the goals and intentions, which supposedly determine the rest and for which intuition has to help us (to a large extent, we are what we are pursuing).
I looked, in the economic press and specialized magazines, for statements from managers of a thousand-year-old wine industry, which attracts me especially because I consider it quite autotelic (and because I like good wine, geez, from time to time and without abuse) In other words, full of businessmen who love their wines and are proud of their products. There are, not to mention artistic or sports activities, other sectors with similar profiles - full of vocation, which see the activity as an end in itself - but I decided to choose this one.
I still have some material, but I will only remember, as an example, statements by a well-known Rioja winemaker who 30 years ago set out to increase his production and spread his best wine around the world: “To achieve this, it was necessary to implement a well thought-out plan at 10 years seen. It was obvious - Don Julio Faustino Martínez said in the Wine and Gastronomy magazine - that the basic and primary objective was to obtain a land of exceptional quality, to plant the best varieties of La Rioja wine… We had to remove all the land… Finally we had to drain, manure and disinfect the soil in various plots and do a good job of clearing… ”. Don Julio seemed to be proud not only of having successfully achieved his goal, but of the work done for it; He was not talking about financial results but professional achievements,and this seems to be the most common in the wine sector.
But I also found reports and statements from executives of some well-known wineries (Bodegas Vinartis, with table wines such as Cumbres de Gredos and others of greater expression such as Pata Negra), which I found significantly different: “Spanish wine has a competitiveness problem in the exterior: the Denominations of Origin ”(Miguel Canalejo Larráinzar, president of these wineries, in Expansión, in June 2004); "The objective is to increase sales in 2004 and obtain an ebitda of 15 million, 17.1% more" (Expansión, also in June); "The estimated ebitda for 2004 amounts to 14.5 million, which represents an increase of 20.8%" (Cinco Días, in December); "Cumbres de Gredos prepares its landing in the Rioja denomination"
(Business strategy, in December); "Next year we will strengthen ourselves with the purchase of wineries in Rioja and Ribera del Duero" (Expansión, in June); "Cumbres de Gredos prepares to land in the US market" (Cinco Días, in December). Going to the same sources, I have not been able to verify, two years later, the achievement of these and other future achievements then announced ("This group will become one of the best international wineries", said its CEO), but I just want to highlight now the difference in the intention and attention suggested here, with respect to the most vocational and common in this sector, focused on its products.
One would think that there are entrepreneurs who devote their attention to the quality and competitiveness of their products or services, and others to the financial parameters, although this would be a bold simplification, a reckless inference: the normal thing is that attention is distributed… But, ¿ what are these previous paragraphs of mine? Because intuition, to contribute to success, seems to be more associated with autothelia than with exothelia; with loyalty to the profession, than with the desire for business; with the dedication to the task, than with the obsession for the economic result; with the orientation to the community, than with the particular interest.
Naturally, the company, in this or other sectors, must pursue economic results; But it does not seem healthy that they absorb the attention of managers: they do attract and direct it, but not that they absorb it. In other words, the benefit can be seen as a consequence of well-managed activity, or this as an inevitable means of achieving it, and this truism is valid, of course, for any economic sector.
So, apart from the example that the experiences of Sony and Coca Cola offered us in terms of goals pursued, or manifest intentions of their executives, we can find others easily and closer. By taking another step - or perhaps another round the corner -, it may be happening that the excessive desire to lead markets, to obtain quick benefits, to cultivate one's own image, is blocking the intuition -if not other faculties or competences- of some managers and businessmen; But there are many professionals who achieve the desired conjunction between professional satisfaction and the achievement of results: these would be visited more by intuition, as they are more receptive.
Yes, I would highlight the competitive advantage that intuition represents for those who cultivate it; This faculty constitutes a metacompetence in our professional profile: it allows us to obtain the best performance of the other competences.
We are talking, yes, of the singular faculty that guided, in different times, so many scientists and entrepreneurs who contributed to innovation and progress, and who did not seek to enrich themselves, but to contribute to the well-being of society.
Some philosophers of our day have continued to reflect on the particular and social use of intelligence, betting on it. I do not propose here, in any way, a management by intention, nor a management by attention, nor a management by intuition; But after a more effective and satisfying performance, perhaps we should revise our intention, manage care better, and cultivate intuition: I think it would be worth it.
I would like to repeat it, if you will allow me: let's review our goals and intentions, manage our attention accordingly - a sort of stopcock for what comes to consciousness - and put catalysts for intuition; in this way - unless we are already doing it - we will make our professional performance more effective.
Giving all their meaning to these reflections, we could reach a certain reengineering and revitalization of ourselves that may be opportune at some point in our trajectory, perhaps reaching routine or mental fatigue.
Of course, it is not possible to think about self-control, about governing ourselves, without sufficient control of attention and consciousness; and if we also have some access to the unconscious, we are already approaching a good use of our faculties. They may have thought that the unconscious is a kind of basement or attic in which we keep things in case we ever need them…; but I would like to add that consciousness, understood here as conscious memory, is a bit like the refrigerator: well ordered, more things fit.
In this synthesis, we should not forget the need to separate authentic intuition from other motives, both when making decisions, formulating opinions or drawing conclusions. A mind, perhaps more troubled or entropic than calm and orderly, could be affected by impulses that, far from being related to intuition, do so with desires, interests, obsessions, conjectures, premature or reckless judgments, occurrences, fears, erroneous beliefs, improvisations, apprehensions, ambitions, feelings, etc. Let us renounce none of this, but let us identify each thing well and distinguish genuine intuition well.
To hear this inner voice, we may have to cover our ears; or that to see beyond, deeper, we have to close our eyes. There are indeed minds in which the catalysis of intuition hardly takes place, as there are others who are very familiar with the phenomenon… Yes, perhaps we should delve into its meaning: what do we call intuition?
Intuitive phenomena
When trying to approximate intuition, some experts facilitate it: Jagdish Parikh, who studied the phenomenon carefully among managers, speaks of “accessing the internal pool of expertise and experience accumulated over years, and obtaining an answer, or a impulse to do something, or an alternative chosen from among several, all without being aware of how it is obtained ”; adding a certain significance, the consulting firm Arupa Tesolin tells us that “beyond emotional intelligence, lies intuitive intelligence, closely aligned with common sense; while the first covers a wide field of personal abilities, intuition involves the deepest levels of self-knowledge, which are reached by hearts and souls ”; Dr. Frances Vaughan helped broaden the horizon:"Intuition allows us to draw on the enormous supply of knowledge of which we are not aware, including not only everything that one has experienced or learned intentionally or subliminally, but also the infinite reserve of universal knowledge, in which limits are exceeded of the individual ”.
This description reminds us that intuition is also nourished by the collective unconscious of which Jung spoke, and it even seems to open space for Rupert Sheldrake's theory of the extended mind, which would put our thoughts in contact through the so-called morphogenic fields.
There are certainly many experts who, with greater or lesser resonance, have dealt with the subject: Herbert Simon maintains that the essence of intuition lies in an organization of tacit knowledge that allows its rapid identification and transformation into explicit knowledge; Robert K. Cooper points out that emotional honesty significantly favors intuition and that this, among other effects, nurtures empathy; Einstein used to say that "intuition is the only thing that really counts"; Daniel Goleman argues that “instant intuitive sensitivity could be the vestige of a primitive and essential alarm system, whose function was to warn us of danger…”; and more recently Malcolm Gladwell comes to tell us that what is perceived through intuition is worth so much in the blink of an eye,as the result of months of rational analysis (I want to clarify this, but then we will talk about the synergy or harmony between intuition and reason).
Intuition is certainly more important than it seems, but like the brain itself, it remains a mystery. We could place its signals and its functional mechanism between the primitive and evolved nervous systems, between thoughts and feelings, between ability and gift, between the individual and the collective, between the conscious and the unconscious, between our old past and the remote future, between fickleness and science… It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to make a complete definition of intuition, although we can find many comments on it:
- It typically manifests itself through visceral words, ideas, images, feelings or sensations, which are not always well defined. Its revelations can occur at any time and also in the form of dreams; We must be attentive and prepared to recognize and interpret them. It often occurs without warning, but it can also be called, and respond immediately or take some time. In its perhaps more daily manifestation, it allows us to read between the lines and know but it can also generate suspicion or distrust towards others. It uses different levels or vehicles to manifest itself, and perhaps more than one at a time: the physical, the mental, the emotional and the spiritual. It is also diverse in time:an instantaneous signal, a sensation for a time, a state, a continuous process… It presents indeterminate boundaries: some people think, for example, that appetite, in addition to being a form of stress, is an intuition. It chooses us -more than we to her-, but that does not mean that we cannot facilitate the meeting and receive her messages. In choosing us, she seems to follow criteria of merit and receptivity; as if it helps the upright more than the corrupt, the generous than the selfish. It complements knowledge, such as emotional intelligence to analytics, commitment to purpose, or integrity to motivation. It intervenes in the judgments we make About the others; This is something recognized, which also serves to evaluate our intuitive ability, it generates valuable convictions and timely doubts,to any new project or strategic decision, and in general to the existence of alternatives. It is behind many achievements in terms of creativity and innovation, and has been key in numerous business successes. It seems to demand, as it were, that we be in resonance with the challenge or problem to be solved; That is, that we have understood it well. It is used by executives during all phases of problem solving: detection, definition, study of solutions and implementation. It allows us to foresee upcoming events (although presumably visionary entrepreneurs or managers are not always so Really).that we are in resonance with the challenge or problem to be solved; That is, that we have understood it well. It is used by executives during all phases of problem solving: detection, definition, study of solutions and implementation. It allows us to foresee upcoming events (although presumably visionary entrepreneurs or managers are not always so Really).that we are in resonance with the challenge or problem to be solved; That is, that we have understood it well. It is used by executives during all phases of problem solving: detection, definition, study of solutions and implementation. It allows us to foresee upcoming events (although presumably visionary entrepreneurs or managers are not always so Really).
I will have already bored the reader, and that I have saved a good part of my list. I would say that we are talking about a deep intelligence, capable of lending us a hand, giving us clues, guiding us in everything that, after a successful conclusion, conscious intelligence does not resolve. Let us remember in this regard the case of the sewing machine, which was perhaps the first machine that was introduced in the domestic sphere.
Apparently, after some meritorious achievements such as that of the French Thimmonier, it was the American Elias Howe who patented a sewing machine in 1846. He had married a seamstress, and was obsessed with the idea of creating a machine that would sew.
It seems that the key was to place the hole in the thread at the tip of the needle and not at the head, and it is said that this idea came to him after a dream he had. He dreamed, although several versions are told, that he was held captive by savages and harassed with spears that had a hole in the tip. When he woke up, he immediately linked this detail with the problem he faced. The truth is that it was later Isaac Singer who actually sold a large number of units of an improved version of Howe's invention, but this story highlights several things:
- that intuition exists for a good purpose; that intuitive intelligence reaches where conscious intelligence does not; that penetration into problems favors the consciousness-unconscious connection; that dreams can provide decisive keys, and that innovation is more than creativity.
Let us insist that it is not a faculty that we manage at will, but that it is our own intuition that seems, in effect, to choose us: we must do everything possible to be attractive to them, and of course take advantage of their help. What can we do about it?
The cultivation of intuition
By mere observation, and perhaps interest in brain dominance (I am thinking of Herrmann's model), we know that, in our professional environment, there are people more intuitive than others; but we can all get better at this. In case you add something that you have not considered sufficiently, I offer a dodecalogue for your consideration:
1. Orient ourselves to the common good and the win-win principle.
2. Take perspective to better perceive the realities.
3. Ask us questions.
4. Optimize the management of attention and awareness.
5. Delve into problems.
6. Incubate solutions.
7. Interpret and record the signals received.
8. Distinguish intuition from what is not.
9. Reconcile reason and intuition.
10. Act accordingly.
11. Become aware of the process.
12. Demand more of us.
On all this there is much to say. Orienting ourselves to the common good means a commitment to integrity and ethics; Asking us questions refers to… Yes, it is worth dwelling on asking questions. After a better attunement with the surrounding realities, many questions could be asked, but, thinking above all of those to whose answer intuition could contribute, and, as a profile, in a small or medium-sized business entrepreneur:
- What needs are emerging or will arise in my sector or subsector? What problems do my customers face? What do they expect of me? Where can I find new customers? Do I distinguish between customers and consumer-users? Why do I do they prefer my products-services? What other products-services can I offer? Do I have a solid advantage over the competition? On what or who do I depend? Am I looking after the future? Is there enough functional synergy in my environment? Do I value the Other people's initiatives? Can I improve job satisfaction around me? Should I do things differently? How can I solve this, or that, problem? Do I address problems, or their symptoms? Are there spurious interests around me? Am I really objective and realistic? Do they see me and the company as we are? What occupies my attention and my conscience?
If we don't ask our intuition questions, it will obviously be more difficult to receive answers from it; but, when it appears and once it has been deciphered, interpreted, recorded, the intuitive signal must submit to reason.
In practice, it intervenes depending on the circumstance (in real time, at any unexpected moment after an incubation…) and the type of intuition experienced: an explanation of something, an initiative, an imprecise feeling, an elaborate judgment, a direction marked, an opportunity unveiled…
Reason must consent, or at least consent, before proceeding accordingly; but above all it has to sanction the authenticity of the intuition, uncovering desires or interests that may have adulterated it: the importance of self-knowledge and self-control is already seen.
We can accept that intuition does not deceive us, but let's admit that we have been able to confuse or misrepresent the question, the concern, the problem; so that the reason can rightly reject the received message.
In the favorable case that we can take advantage of it, it must be remembered that intuition is difficult to transmit to others (our business world seems rigidly based on rational arguments); the best thing is that the intuitive has authority to act and can offer positive results.
Managers of large companies seem to think that, to carry out an audacious initiative or idea, the best thing is for the boss to think that it has occurred to him… But, as I said, I think that the path that leads from intuition to action It depends on each case and there are not many generalizations; also, I must be finishing.
A final message
All of this was to encourage them to delve into the problems, perhaps by going to bed at night, and watch for solutions, perhaps upon waking; to rely, in short, on intuitive help. In youth, we are able to acquire many knowledge and skills in a short time, and we reap degrees, diplomas and experiences, but we may miss achievements that, such as self-knowledge, appear later.
In the second age and without stopping learning, we apply better what we have learned, consolidating emotional maturity, making important personal discoveries, taking perspective, listening to the inner voice of conscience and the unconscious, relating better with others and with ourselves.
I believe that in this personal and professional stage, to neutralize the routine or psychic fatigue, to find new incentives, new possibilities, we can better use the valuable help of intuition: let's cultivate it. Better said: let's facilitate its catalysis, through reflection, order in consciousness, incubation…
I tried to leave to my audience, in the sessions of the Training & Business Center of Buenos Aires, the message that we all evaluate ourselves in the four variables displayed, with the dual purpose of advancing in our effectiveness and competitiveness, and also in the quality of professional life, ours and our environment. This can lead us to a timely reconsideration of ourselves.
