Most business people acknowledge that rely on their gut when making decisions. Few say that they base their entire decision-making on their inner knowledge, awareness, feelings or thoughts. Many believe that the two go hand in hand. We have our factual data and then we have information from sources not always known or readily apparent to us and we make decisions.
Choices Made In A Fast Paced World
Today in a fast paced world, we make choices without having access to all the pertinent data. Often the time to collect the information is not always possible or practical. Time is not always the solution. The data isn’t always available We have to go with our gut. We have no choice.
I believe that we come to our conclusions and take action drawing on a pool of information based up knowledge of people, situations, history and from a lot of nonverbal cues that we have collected. Not everyone will say I go with my gut, but they may tell you that it made common sense, it was a logical decision or a practical one. In the end, they came to a conclusion.
“What Do I Know About This?”
Many people make poor choices either when then ignore their instincts. One client confirmed that he was highly successful at hiring except the one time when he felt pushed to hire a perspective employee. His staff was behind in their work and were pressuring him to hire help. That “help” was a disaster and was fired six months later.
Another client couldn’t bring himself to fire a well liked employee because he didn’t want to disappoint his staff or the employee. It took him six months to do what his gut told him needed to happen.
Some people don’t pay much attention to the components of their decision-making. It may be automatic with little awareness. It is helpful to understand the process partially because with consciousness decision-makers can have conversations with others and can have an inner dialogue to make beneficial selections. One can ask oneself ” What do I know about this?” “Who can I reach out to for more information?” ” Are there ways of gathering or obtaining more data?”
Do A “Check-In”
There are ways in this busy world of taking a few minutes to do a “check-in” and listen to the voice inside that often has many answers and ideas. Breathe slowly and ask yourself what it knows about a person or situation. One of the best techniques that someone can do is to take time to reflect and slow down. Meditate on a situation for a few minutes. Write down your challenge and notice what thoughts arise.
You aren’t alone in trusting your instincts. In fact, you have lots of company. Scientists and business people espouse the virtues of the sixth sense. Steve Jobs called intuition “more powerful than intellect.”
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