Is There Room for Intuition in Business?

I used to be one of those people who deemed intuition and decision-making (especially the left-brain kind) to be mutually exclusive. We don’t really know what intuition is; it’s a feeling, and it can’t be measured. So why would we consider it when making changes that affect the bottom line? Can you imagine sitting in a board meeting and listing “because it feels right” as a factor in selecting a vendor, a project path, etc.?

But sixth-sense thinking seems to be seeping through our mainstream cubicle walls as an alternative source of consulting. Business intuitives, as they like to be called, have created a corporate trade out of what was previously considered to be mere entertainment -- the kind of consulting you might come across in a carnival or late-night television infomercial.

Lynn Robinson, an intuitive consultant, works directly with companies on projects including marketing, new business, key hires and even product launches. Her Web site lists the introduction of the Schick Intuition razor as such an instance. Not bad for following one’s gut, eh?

The hiring of a corporate clairvoyant, if you will, might be a new concept, but the practice of responding to one’s feelings when making a business-related decision is not. Masaru Ibuka, founder and former chief advisor of Sony, was known to mull integral decisions over a cup of herbal tea. Based on his body’s response to the tea (which he read as his gut reaction), he would settle on a resolution.

Whether intuitive advising translates into a long-standing and widely accepted means of commercial consulting is yet to be seen. While it may open up a can of worms with regards to its high level of subjectivity, integrating elements of one’s instinct might be effective when used in tandem with conventional business consulting resources.

Do you use your intuition at work?

Share this post: Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Facebook, Twitter, etc.