Home » Role Of Intuition In Improving The Art of Decision Making Process

In this fast moving and dynamic world where life is becoming relatively less structured with more complexities, intuition is adapting itself to become a great and very important decision making tool. As decision-making is crucial and central to every human activity, we all must know how to make good decisions to improve our personal life as well as our business. For this science of decision-making is certainly useful, but to make great and important decisions in tricky and complex situations, the solution and ability to arrive at truth must come from the options based on the experience, values, emotions (feelings and heart based) and the sub conscious mind. Now, the following challenges are is there any way to improve the imagination and intuitive decision making skills for executives and is there a way to compensate for weakness associated with intuition. Though intuition can trigger hasty judgments and rash decisions, using logic initially along with one's intuition will always make a decision feel right and effective in action. First let us peep into the decision making process.

A decision is a judgment. It is a choice between alternatives. It is a well-known fact that effective people do not make many decisions but concentrate on only important ones. Peter F. Drucker, the revered and renowned management thinker had in his articles has mentioned that great and important decisions made by great business builders like Alfred P. Sloan Jr. are their realization that the problem was generic and can be solved by decision making which establishes a rule or a principle. The decision maker also has to set the boundary conditions or the specifications in order for the solution of the problem to provide satisfaction. Further the thinking that what is right than that is acceptable to satisfy the boundary conditions has to be the core compromise of decision-making process. Further decision has to be converted into effective action and finally a feedback that has to be built into the decision to continually test the validity and effectiveness against the actual sequence of events.

The rationalized thinking of decision-making process is the alternative to intuitive based approach. In rational decision-making process, one consciously analyzes all the processes. It relies mostly on logic, quantitative techniques and analysis. A whole new set of tools under the name of operations research and simulation facilitate rational decision-making. These are a great help in middle stages of decision making, like analyzing the problem, developing boundary conditions and alternatives. It plays a crucial role in many critical situations where one has to deal with extensive quantitative data and where one has clear-cut criteria, yet one is likely to face personal and business situations where rational decision-making becomes impractical. Rational thinking tools like operations research and all its techniques-mathematical analysis, modern logic, information theory, game theory, probability cannot help in defining what the problem is, they cannot determine the right question, they cannot set the objectives for the solution nor can they set rules. They cannot make the decision concerning the best solution nor can they by themselves make a decision effective. Further it can be taken successfully and effectively if the executive knows what he is doing and does it in a systematic way.

The limitations of rational decision process paves way for intuition in the context of decision making

Intuition makes an executive a better and effective decision maker, especially when one deals with non-standard situation or in swift and expedient decision-making. Intuition is also needed when the problem is poorly structured, there is no precedent, the information is ambiguous, incomplete or conflicting, and the rules and factors are hard to articulate in an unambiguous way. Next let us look into what do we mean by intuition in the context of decision-making?

Intuition is a process that is dominated by the subconscious mind, even if the conscious mind is used

To formulate or rationalize the final results. Here the information is processed in parallel rather than sequentially. Instead of going through a logical sequence of thoughts one by one, the situation is seen more as a whole, with different fragments emerging in parallel. Connection is more with emotions and opinions. For example, it may occur that an option does not feel right, even though there is no clear logic to prove that. People often say that intuition is an innate talent like some people have sharp hearing or good eyesight. But modern philosophers describe it as a way of thinking, which stems from reason and improves with experience and appropriate exercises. To understand the simplest way to make sense of why and how intuition works is to think of it as an advanced pattern recognition device. The subconscious mind somehow finds links between new situation and various patterns of the past experiences. One may not recall most of the details of those experiences. And even if one did, it may be very hard to express the lessons one learnt in a form acceptable for analytical reasoning. Yet, one’s subconscious mind still remembers the patterns learnt. It can rapidly project one's new circumstances onto those patterns and send a message of wisdom. That message comes as one's intuition and will most likely be expressed in the language of your feelings. For example, some of the options or solutions one considers may not feel right.

Consider a student's dilemma to decide whether to join (1) an Engineering Subject which may lead to a better career or (2) An arts or science subject in which one has a natural and innate interest. To intuitively decide is to go with the subject that is subjected by emotional reactions. The greatest advantage of this reaction is that it leads directly to a decision. For example if one has to choose between two items to purchase within a given budget for presenting a gift, it would be pointless as well as a waste of time and effort to ponder over and calculate the advantages and disadvantages. Same is the case when one has to choose a soft drink say coke or Pepsi. Instead an intuition or an emotional reaction can make for a quick and suitable decision. Also an emotional reaction would be suitable when brides or bridegrooms look for their life partners.

But emotional based intuitive decision-making has many pitfalls. It may be based on inaccurate or irrelevant information. For example a recruiter who is biased against a particular sex, race etc. should not use intuition, as persons with good qualifications may not be hired in good posts. Intuitive decisions in problematic situations in a collectivedecison making environment is not advisable. Lastly, one should probably try not to make intuitive decisions in any environment where one feels oneself to be dominated. If one does, it is possible one may "intentionally" predict the future incorrectly.

To rely on intuition one has to do lot of homework and it is very important. The intuition will help you navigate faster through much of unstructured data and can work around certain gaps and conflicts in the available information. Yet, even intuition can be misled if too many of your facts are wrong or missing. Always pay attention to emotional state and its well-being. One can increase the quality of intuitive decisions if one includes certain elements of the analytical approach. In particular, one should try to follow the procedure of the rational analysis first. As much as one can, one should capture on paper the ideas on the main options and the criteria for evaluating the different choices. One should write down the key facts and factors one need to keep in mind. Following this procedure is an effective way to feed one's subconscious mind with all the relevant data it needs. Putting all those notes together on paper acts as a mind map. Also run the decision across other people to see if it is reasonable to them. At that stage one is much more inclined to rely on intuition.

A communications project going on at the Newark College, USA suggests that the executives anticipating future intuitively rather than logically when put in positions where data support will always not exist will make better decisions. Moreover, a valid test has been developed for determining which people do, and which do no, have this ability. The test consists of asking the participants to guess at

a 100-digit number not currently in existence. Each of the 100 digits can take on any value from 0 to 9.

The target that each participant guesses at is later generated by a computer using random number techniques. Each participant has his or her own specific target to guess at. As expected, some people guess above the chance level of 10 correct guesses out of the 100 digits, while others guess at, or below, the chance level. That some people score above chance on this test would, by itself, not prove they have

intuitive ability. It is believed that executives, who make a decision based on intuition, build up a rationale

Later, so that they do not look foolish. The intuitive decision maker has to build up the habit of

using intuitive information. An example of making intuitive decision is the sudden thought that comes

to an automobile driver to take a side road rather than the usual straight and shorter highway. If the thought is not heeded, and later on down the highway, the motorist runs into a traffic tie-up. Another fine example where intuitive decisions have to be used is that of a firefighter at a tactical level in a fire environment. Here the environment is constantly changing and lack of time can hamper to conduct an accurate analysis. Each intuitive decision maker has to test the existence of intuition for oneself with an open, positive, mental attitude. If one denies its existence, one is in effect repressing it and it will go away. The quality of courage or guts is an important and necessary component of intuition based decision makers. Former General Motors President Alfred Sloan, the great rational decision maker commenting on the company's founder William C. Durant, characterized him as a man who "would proceed on a course of action guided solely, as far as I could tell, by some intuitive flash of brilliance. We never felt obliged to make an engineering hunt for the facts. Yet at times he was astonishingly correct in his judgments." One more classic example is that of Abbot. The Wall Street Journal of November 3, 1971, began a front-page article on Charles G. Abbot, the retired secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, with the following words "Charles Greeley Abbot dreams things up." At two o'clock on the morning in July 1965, for example, Mr. Abbot awoke in his suburban bedroom to find that he had been dreaming about something that had not been invented yet. So he invented it. Then he went back to sleep." Things happen that way with Mr. Abbot, inventor and scientist and sage. Some of his best ideas came as dreams in the middle of the night."

In everyday life we are faced with figures: prices, taxes, children 's rating at school, results etc. It is true at work: orders, production costs, yields, defect rates, salaries etc. Variations of numbers are a constant issue. If intuition is used for reasoning them, we either overestimate or neglect them according to certain opinions. On the contrary control charts have a better vision of many problems and their decisions are effective much more. Many executive decision makers have revealed that a constant use of control charts improves their intuition. If drawing control charts are done on a regular basis it changes the relative importance that people attach to events, therefore it changes the organization of their memory and hence removes a lot of preconceived ideas.

Intuitive decision making which is an art like the thinking process is a complex and little understood process. Life cannot sustain or go through without it. It primarily relies on experience to recognize the gist of given problem or situation. Based on the this and other material written on decision making a well as feedback from executives, it does appear that executives use intuition in their decision making process. To justly conclude, the procedure of intuitive decision making supported by suitable rationale and analytical thinking is the key to turn decisions into profitable and memorable ones.

1. Peter F. Drucker "The Essential Drucker."

2. Peter F. Drucker " The Practice of Management."

3 "Adaptive Decision Making" http:// www.studygs.net/

4. Jean Marie Gogue " Improving the art of decision making"

5. "The power of intuition in decision making " http:// www.time-management-guide.com./

6. "The art of decision making" http://www.wiley.com/

7. "The precognitive Decision Maker." http://www.ultramind.ws/

8. "Decision Making and Problem Solving" http://www.ultramind.ws/

9 Paul Thogard "How to make decisions"