LET YOURSELF GO. THINK.

I hate what the MBA culture has done to Daniel Kahneman’s calls System One, which others call the right brain and normal people call instinct and impulse. I hate business plans which, for the most part are bigger works of fiction than Harry Potter. I hate the endless piles of paper, spreadsheets, analyses and self-serving reports. A friend said “paper plans or paper planes” - right on.

In his brilliant book “Blink” Malcolm Gladwell describes the magnificently effective tool a well-trained gut is. The expert on art who can intuitively smell a fake because “something feels wrong”; the professional card player whose playing behaviour changes before his rational brain notices his impulse to have done so sensing that the cards are stacked; our first impressions which are sometimes but seldom wrong.

All this suggests our desire to balance rationality and intuition, which is (if you think about it) perfectly rational, is entirely wrong. It belongs to the same school of thought that suggests you must dumb down the brilliant to accommodate the mediocre.

Intuition allowed free rein may lead us somewhat astray sometimes and can earn us the reputation of shooting from the hip but our gut feel and our ability to hone it and develop it is our magic bonus.
Where human ingenuity comes in lies  in our ability to think hard about whether the instinct that is so strong can make sense and isn’t simply a prejudice or a prejudgement based on previously good experiences. In a word we have great instincts but we are also smart. And we are smart enough to listen and learn. Our skill in learning up to the moment of death is impressively distinctive.

But when they insist you read all that data because therein lies the answer,  first of all ask them what they really think about the problem.

How to solve problems and make brilliant decisions. (Business Thinking Skills that really work) published by Pearson is coming out on November 7th 2014