BigNosedUglyGuy (BNUG) (I don't know who he is) blogs about Gladwell, Enron, Blink, and rapid cognition ... which may or may not be "intuition." BNUG is confused about just what intuition is. He refers to Thomas Gladwell's article, "Open Secrets: Enron, Intelligence and the Perils of too much Information in the New Yorker.
Gladwell wrote Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, which has been particularly popular with analytical, rational types; people who must make something difficult. Sort of the Protestan ethic of thinking -- if you don't have to sweat over a spreadsheet for 3 hours, you don't have the answer type of thing. High IQ and suspicious of "emotion" for some reason.
Well, intuition has gotten "bad press" for a long time' for decades it was married to the word "female." Women are better at it because their brains conduct emotion better, and there's quicker and better communication between both hemispheres of the neocortex. (See Essential Difference; Truth about Male & Female Brain) Men's are better at other things ... besides if you're unhappy with the state of your emotional intelligence (which includes intuition) find out where (take the EQ Map) and then come learn more. EQ, unlike IQ, can be improved upon.
Gladwell talks about "rapid cognition", the kind of thinking that happens in the blink of an eye. It is fast, immediate, and spot-on. Therefore heavy-thinkers who rely excessively on reason and logic are annoyed by it, as well as mystified. (And Gladwell gives some fascinating examples!) It happens to be essential for making good decisions, of the most important type (like whom to trust, and whom to marry and 'when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em' and whether that Van Gogh is a fake or not) . It's why we find 150-IQ geniuses whose private lives are in shambles. But "blink" puts it up in the eyes and smacks of 'neocortex" (cognition, doh) while it's really in the gut ... read about the vagus nerve. After all, our heads can lie to us, our gut cannot. Why else do you get a headache every time you have to deal with that ignoramus down in the IT department?
Our blogger says "When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions."
Actually what happens is you get a feeling that cirumvents the deceptive neocortex completely, which is why it's so spot-on!
It's a gut feeling and we use sensory words to describe it - it stinks, something was fishy, she's like a warm bath, I walked in there and it felt like 'home,' my hair stood on end, he made me sick to my stomach, she gave me butterflies in my stomach ... that kind of thing. It's when a man says, "I knew the minute I met her that I would marry her."
What's rational about that?
BNUG says "You could also say that it’s a book about intuition, except that I don’t like that word. In fact it never appears in 'Blink.' (Oh thank heavens?) (and isn't that like saying you don't like the word "gravity"?)
Well, we need all the information we can get about how the brain works, and how to make the most important decisions. I, like BNUG, am fascinated with the subject too, because I teach it.
Everyone has intuition; it can always be developed. It is essential to our safety. It is also not dependent on "cognition" or the neocortex. Like the dog sensing the earthquake coming, those sensient people who know their "gut feelings" are the most likely to sense something's wrong in a nuclear plant (a funny sound, a change in temperature .. yes, it is about change). They also know how to pick a winner - at the racetrack or in the stock market. If rational study and analysis were the answer, we'd all be rich in the stock market which is, after all, the most emotional thing on earth. (Though men don't like to admit it.)
If you cannot get in touch with (note the wording) gut feelings, you'll be standing there reading the chart that says everything's okay when the nuclear reactor blows. Horses in a burning stable have more "sense" than that!
There are different definitions of intuition. (See my ebook on "Intuition") Different levels. One is the sensory level. Think of how a dog stays live - they share the limbic brain with us humans, but they have no neocortex and they cannot think. There are no "rapid cognitions." If your dog doesn't "like" someone, it is (1) not rational and (2) something you'd best pay attention to. Yes? Same with kids. The neocortex, the thinking brain, isn't fully developed for years ... and kids have to go on the instincts they were born with. The ones that keep us alive.
A definition the more intellectual types prefer is that is comes from experience. Yes, I've had people ask me on coaching calls, "How did you know that?" like I was pulling rabbits out of a hat? "How did you know I was the first-born?" or "How did you know my mother was mentally unstable/alcoholic/on drugs?" or "How do you know my husband is critical?"
From years of experience. Things kick in for me. I've heard how the pieces go together, over and over, and while each person is unique, certain patterns present themselves repeatedly, and certain causes tend to bring on certain effects. After a while you can read backward from the effect, which is a sort of intuition. My job is to untangle mis-wired connections and reprogram them, so I know a lot about it. And I coach over the phone. I don't even need to see the person. Years and years of experience with people, clinical data, in the trenches sort of thing. (No I can't read someone's mind ... in fact you're in big trouble if you think you can, but I can sense things.)
That's why I wouldn't go to a surgeon, or coach, or stock broker who wasn't over the age of 40. Book learning can't get to the core of things. On the most important things, the data always runs out. You have to have emotional intelligence to take you over those leaps. When the coin's in the air spinning, you can't take out a probability chart. It would say 50-50, yes?
How do you know when to trust your intuition? How do you know if those snap judgments are right? Well, your intuition will tell you ... and if that isn't a Catch-22. (Work with an EQ coach and learn about it ... it can be learned.)
BNUG writes, "I'm tryng to understand those two seconds. What is going on inside our heads when we engage in rapid cognition? When are snap judgments good and when are they not?" And THATt is the crucial thing to know. "Alpha males" get into a lot of trouble because they make snap intellectual judgments about people. That works with data; it does not work with people. You must judge people ultimately, in the ways that matter, from a "gut feeling." Alpha males - and most CEOs and professionals are that - are notorious for (1) not believing anyone who doesn't have a Ph.D. in the field, and thereby missing the clear common sense the secretary knows, and everyone else knows...except for the CEO; and (2) allowing a person one mistake, and that's it. They can never recover, redeem, grow or learn. What a waste of people.
Those sorts of "snap judgments" are really harmful.
The "snap judgements" that work? She blew it on her first assignment, but I "know" her (this is intuition). And then you roll it out (smart people learn how to rationalize intuition for those who don't "believe" in it) - I trust her (she comes to work on time, she doesn't lie when she makes a mistake, she bakes us cookies). She is eager to learn (she's always reading something, she enters conversations outside her 'area' and wants to learn). She can learn (I've never seen her make the same mistake twice).
There are all sorts of signals "below the surface" to the purely neocortex-type that give a plethora of information you really need to know, to tune in to, to make things work. You have to be able to 'read between the lines,' to 'see the handwriting on the wall,' to 'call a spade a spade.'
Our blogger asks, "What kinds of things can we do to make our powers of rapid cognition better?” Answer: EQ coaching. It can be learned. It can be taught.
"How do you know when you have good intuition?" BNUG queries. There's really no such thing as "bad" intuition ... because that isn't intuition at all, it's something else. Fantasy, wishful thinking, etc.
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