This work offers a summary of the book “INTUITION AT WORK: Why Developing Your Gut Instincts Will Make You Better At What You Do” by Gary Klein.
Studies have shown about 90% of the critical decisions a person actually makes will generally be based more on their “gut feelings” about the right thing to do than hard data. Yet, intuition is an undervalued facet of business decisions. Gary Klein suggests that a better strategy would be to acknowledge the importance of intuition and become better at using it. He defines intuition as “the way we translate our past experiences into decisions about our present actions”. Excellent intuition is not ESP or magic, it’s making quick, good decisions on experience. Firefighters, for example, are able to make life-and-death decisions rapidly because they pick up on the clues of what is happening and know intuitively how they should react without requiring detailed analysis.
Klein has written an extremely useful book on how to develop these instincts as quickly as possible. He recommends analyzing past decisions for their effectiveness and your thought processes; he suggests specific decision making exercises to practice your skills. In this book, Klein also demonstrates that sometimes waiting to make a decision is still an intuitive process. He believes that flexibility is the key to intuitive decision-making, as is constant communication with employees.
Intuition at Work is an excellent guidebook for good decisions and long-term strategy.