AN IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOK
Developing Your Intuition
A Guide to Reflective Practice
IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOKS
Aimed at managers and executives who are concerned with their own and others’ development, each guidebook in this series gives specific advice on how to complete a developmental task or solve a leadership problem.
| LEAD CONTRIBUTOR | Talula Cartwright |
| GUIDEBOOK ADVISORY GROUP | Victoria A. Guthrie |
| Cynthia D. McCauley | |
| Ellen Van Velsor | |
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS | Martin Wilcox |
| EDITOR | Peter Scisco |
| ASSOCIATE EDITOR | Karen Mayworth |
| DESIGN AND LAYOUT | Joanne Ferguson |
| CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS | Laura J. Gibson |
| Chris Wilson, 29 & Company |
Copyright © 2004 Center for Creative Leadership.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.
CCL No. 425
ISBN-10: 1-882197-83-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-882197-83-5
CENTER FOR CREATIVE LEADERSHIP
AN IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOK
Developing Your Intuition
A Guide to Reflective Practice
Talula Cartwright
THE IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOK SERIES
This series of guidebooks draws on the practical knowledge that the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®) has generated in the course of more than thirty years of research and educational activity conducted in partnership with hundreds of thousands of managers and executives. Much of this knowledge is shared—in a way that is distinct from the typical university department, professional association, or consultancy. CCL is not simply a collection of individual experts, although the individual credentials of its staff are impressive; rather it is a community, with its members holding certain principles in common and working together to understand and generate practical responses to today’s leadership and organizational challenges.
The purpose of the series is to provide managers with specific advice on how to complete a developmental task or solve a leadership challenge. In doing that, the series carries out CCL’s mission to advance the understanding, practice, and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide. We think you will find the Ideas Into Action Guidebooks an important addition to your leadership toolkit.
Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE BRIEF
Leaders often have to make decisions without complete information, and those decisions are expected to be not only right but also timely. Using reflective techniques can help you learn to depend on your intuition for help in making good decisions quickly. Reflective practices may seem time-consuming at the beginning, but the time you put in on the front end is well worth the investment. It will pay you back both in time and in the quality of the decisions you make.
Intuition and Reflection
In the world of work, leaders often find themselves in the position of having to make decisions without complete information. They’re expected to make decisions that are not only right but also timely. Strategic and tactical choices can’t always wait, so effective leaders learn to depend on their intuition as well as the evidence of the moment to reach decisions quickly with minimal information. Without the confidence to trust their intuition, less effective managers may analyze too long, second-guess their decisions, or change course midstream.
As a rule, Westerners value the ability to make quick decisions and don’t put as much stock in processes that are deliberate, slow, and reflective. But there’s a paradox in that view. The process of slowing down and reflecting, deliberately and conscientiously, actually helps us to build our confidence in using intuition—to trust that gut instinct that enables us to make quick decisions that have a good chance of being correct.
Leaders often question their intuition. They wonder whether they use it enough, whether they can trust it, whether they have it at all. After all, they are often rewarded for their analytical skills and rationalistic approaches. But there are tools and techniques available to help managers understand that they have alternative ways of thinking about problems. Some of these reflective techniques may be unfamiliar to you, which may make it hard to practice and finally adopt them. A certain amount of skepticism is to be expected, but a willful resistance to alternative problem-solving methods (like the ones explained in this guidebook) only reduces the creative resources necessary for innovation and quick action. Managers who are open-minded about using these reflective practices can boost their confidence in their intuitive thinking. They can learn to trust their instincts when critical situations demand quick decisions and when complex problems defy easy answers.
Lonely at the Top
Ironically, the higher up in the organization a manager is and the more complex and critical decisions become, the more useful and necessary intuition is. At the top of organizations, leaders can find themselves isolated from information channels while at the same time they are challenged with complex problems. In its work with thousands of executives, CCL’s experience has been that leaders at the top have a stronger preference for using their intuition than do leaders at lower levels.
Bringing It All Together