Listen to our Intuition to Make the Best Decisions. Last 10 years research in neurobiology seems to say that harnessing one's instincts and intuition helps leaders make better decisions.
Have there been times where you made decisions without thinking, decisions that might have seemed illogical, or even irrational at the time but that turned out to be not only the right ones, but life-altering? Have you ever hired someone with impeccable credentials, knowing deep down that the candidate wasn't right for the position or the organization, only to find out the hard way that by ignoring your instincts and hiring the individual you wasted time and money?
Tapping into that visceral reservoir known as intuition can be particularly difficult for leaders, whose analytical, logical minds are wired to rely on “hard” data to make decisions. But learning to harness one's instincts and intuition helps individuals make better decisions in all areas of their lives, personal and professional, says Karol Ward, a psychotherapist and author of Find Your Inner Voice: Using Instinct and Intuition Through the Body-Mind Connection.
If you allow instinct and intuition to be part of your decision making process, you will feel more at ease, happier, and experience less regret and conflict. I have observed first-hand how this work both with my executive clients and my therapy patients. When people are sitting across from me, struggling with a decision, the moment they get clarity on what to do, their energy changes. Their faces light up, their shoulders relax. They express relief: “as if a wight has left my shoulders,” is a common phrase I hear. There's a definite physical shift that arises when people arrive at a decision that's right for them. I believe there is a strong mind-body connection. Allowing yourself be more aware of the signals your body sends, will let you make better and more accurate decisions.
Mind-body, or More than One Brain?
Before you dismiss all this intuition, instincts, and mind-body talk as new-age mumbo-jumbo, you need to know that there is science behind it. Ward says the stomach is laden with nerve endings, and neurological pathways connect the brain and the gut. Your gut feelings are instincts that you haven't yet articulated in your mind.
Gabriella Kortsch reports Neuro-scientists have demonstrated that we have a brain in our heart and another in our intestines. What we have in each of these, in actual fact, is an extensive mass of neurons that behave in a fashion similar to the neurons contained in the brain, and that appear to function at mega-speeds, often much greater than those of our cerebral neurons. She reports on the work of at least four scientists.
The implications are mind-boggling! Those who live by “their instinct”, or who “listen” to their gut,” or who make decisions based on “what their heart tells them,” now know that trusting your “gut instinct” is actually completely “rational.” In order to make decisions based on all of your knowledge, you should apply not only that which your logical brain tells you, but also what your feeling brain (heart), and your instinctive brain (gut) have given you to understand.
Snap decisions are sometimes the best
In 2007 the BBC reported research conducted by the University College London suggesting that making subconscious snap decisions is more reliable in certain situations than using rational thought processes. I would not go as far as saying, like Trizle, that analytical business decisions suck, but I agree with them that too much analysis often leads to paralysis.
On the other hand, When you rely on your instincts, you're letting the subconscious side of your brain take control. The subconscious side of your brain houses your emotional reactions to past experience, your creativity, your passion, your dreams, your big-picture-thinking. It also holds the small, detailed, vital, information and observations that your conscious doesn't yet know. All these are abilities needed for quality decisions.
Think of it as if you were a baseball player: Let’s supposed you are a player in the big leagues and it’s your turn to bat. You collect pertinent information you've already learned and practiced; add subtle new information from your surroundings and from your body’s reactions; then processes it to make a specific split second decision: do I swing to hit the ball or not. It now only waits for your conscious to notice the decision. If you listen to that inner, wise, impulse, you could hit a home-run. . . or save yourself from a foul. When you make decisions intuitively, that's when you tap that power to win.
Science writer Jonah Lehrer draws on both recent and long-established findings in neuroscience for his newly released book How We Decide. Lehrer argues that the better we understand the brain's biological prerogative, the better able we are to make the right decisions.
Lehrer reports studies of consumers weighing numerous factors which have shown that excessive analysis led to worse decisions than when relying on intuition to make a final choice. The opposite was true for those considering just a few factors: Analysis served them far better than instinct. He uses a different metaphor: the brain as cockpit of an airplane. The pilot represents our rational prefrontal cortex, monitoring screens, arbitrating in conflicts, intervening when the unexpected happens. The vast array of onboard computers represents our "emotional brain" (the heart and the gut); it processes gigantic amounts of information beneath the conscious level, sometimes making up our mind before we know it ourselves.
Your intuitive side will not be right every time. You'll probably be wrong many more times than you'll be right. Nevertheless, you'll be right more times than you would with purely analytical decisions. The good news are: Although the "rational brain," known as the pre-frontal cortex, can handle just four to nine separate pieces of data at once before it begins to oversimplify the problem and focus on irrelevant details as a way of narrowing the choices, the unconscious brain processes much more information than that and is often the source of instincts and emotions that influence our decision making. Using your whole brain (including your heart and your gut) should help you make wiser decisions that are better for you and your organization.
Don’t analyze to paralysis; let your instincts help you start deciding faster and better!