Intuition or Reason?

 

“The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery; the only real valuable thing is intuition.” - Albert Einstein

Intuition is defined as the faculty of attaining cognition “without evident rational thought and inference.”  Increasingly, this intuitive “ability to foresee” is being assessed as a valuable skill necessary to be an effective leader.  Even with a plethora of available rational data , leaders use their intuitive sense to “find the meaning in data” to complement or supplement their decision-making capability. 

Malcolm Gladwell explores intuitive thinking and decision making in his bestselling book ”Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” Backed by extensive research, “Blink” illustrates how people form “very quick judgments based on very little information” that are “every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.”  The ability to do this lies in a part of our brain called the “adaptive unconscious” where a great deal of high level thinking, data and learning is quickly processed and stored.

In Primal Leadership, Daniel Goleman et. al., the author frequently credited for bringing emotional intelligence into the mainstream, refers to this process as “silent learning”   This is because neurologically, the brain constantly and unconsciously registers and stores lessons along with associated emotions as to what works and doesn’t work during experiences.  Then when a similar situation occurs, our brain unconsciously pulls information from the past and informs us through a compelling sense or feeling of either right or wrong within our gut. 

However, both Gladwell and Goleman don’t advocate for the sole reliance on adaptive or unconscious intuition.  It is better to use with other kinds of data because of the potential for “other interests and emotions and sentiments” to influence intuitive feelings.   Senge supports this notion of integrating reason and intuition as part of using every available resource to develop the discipline of “personal mastery.”   According to Senge, studies show leaders “rely heavily on their intuition,” combined with other data, to identify patterns and parallels “to other seemingly disparate situations.”  

The premise of learning and strengthening intuition with practice correlates with my own experiences.   Like most of us, I spent most of my formative years and life developing my cognitive rational abilities.  Why?  Because this is the more socially accepted and valued of the two abilities.   I routinely ignored my intuition because it conflicted with others that valued rational data and thinking.  Often the consequences or outcomes were less than desired, either to myself or the situation.  While these situations were difficult, they taught me valuable lessons that led me to consciously practice listening to my intuition.   Like all skill development, I realized the more I practiced it, the stronger and more frequent my intuition became - it self-perpetuates.  At times the strength and frequency of intuitive hits is somewhat unsettling.   The remedy is surrendering control – sitting with it without judgement or attempt to change it.  By letting it be what it is and go wherever it leads, it shows whether it is true or simply a bias acting out.  In other words, not only do intuitive abilities strengthen, but so does the ability to sort out truth from fiction.  

The inevitable by-product of this growing intuitive abilities is a growing confidence in who I am as a person.  I believe that intuitive judgment is a real andtrue rather than some mysterious power.  It is the result of the unconscious and conscious, experiencial learning, courage to follow ethicalconvictions and surrender to spiritual guidance.  Finally, I believe to solve the increasingly  complex challenges facing today’s world, our effectiveness as people and leaders requires embracing and engaging all that we are - the power and intelligence of our conscious left-brained voice of reason and our unconscious right-brained, spiritually connected intuition.  

   References 

 

1. Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005. http://www.gladwell.com/blink/index.html
2. Goleman, Daniel, Social Intelligence, New York: Bantam Book Random House, 2006. http://www.danielgoleman.info/blog / 
3. Goleman, Daniel, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. Primal Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
4. Laseter, Tim, Matthias Hild, The Power of Plausibility Theory, Many Worlds website, www.manyworlds.com
5. Merriam Webster OnLine, http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=intuition 
6. Royal Roads University. Lt 566 Leadership in Organization Course Notes. Victoria: Royal Roads University, 2005. http://www.royalroads.ca
7. Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline; the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Currency Doubleday, 1990. http://www.presencing.com/People/Peter.html
8. Spears, Larry C. “On Character and Servant-Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders.”   The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership Website, http://www.greenleaf.org/leadership/read-about-it/Servant-Leadership-Articles-Book-Reviews.html 

 

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Social and Ecological Intelligence

Read Are You a Socially Intelligent Leader? for a succinct overview of the importance of social Intelligence.  For more read Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatz in the September 2008 Harvard Business Review.   Visit http://www.morethansound.net./ for more from Daniel Goleman and other leaders in emerging fields that are crucial to our time about ideas that deepen our understanding of the human experience.  You can also watch Daniel Golemen discuss his book “Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships” as a part of the Authors@Google series.   

Daniel Goleman’s newest work Ecological Intelligence may seem a bit of a divergence, but it is certainly relative and critical to ours and our world’s future.  It  ”reveals the hidden environmental consequences of what we make and buy, and shows how new market forces can drive the essential changes we all must make to save our planet.”  Read exerpt from the book.  Also, find out why Time Magazine listed it as one of ’10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now’ .

the brain, leadership and change

If you want leading edge research and implications about how the brain works, check out the offical site for the emerging NeuroLeadership field, The Global Neuroleadership Summit .   What is Neuro Leadership you ask?   It is a new field of study fo­­cused on bringing neuroscientific knowledge into the area of leadership development, management training, education, consulting and coaching.  David Rock, author of Quiet Leadership , Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work and Founder/CEO of Results Coaching Systems, is one of the key people leading the charge to marketing and promoting Neuroleadership worldwide.  Good on ya David! 

Hear interview with David Rock on NeuroLeadership and the Global NeuroLeadership Summits. Learn how to apply the latest in neuroscience to the art of coaching and leadership Brain-Based Coaching and Leadership.  Listen to why change is so hard from a physical perspective from the teleseminar Insights about the brain that change everything.   Learn about companies that brought in and built a coaching culture report significantly reduced staff turnover, increased productivity, greater happiness and satisfaction at work.

And just to keep things a little in balance, here is a healthy dose of skepticism on the value of Neuroleadership….Is Neuroleadership More Than Reinventing Wheels?

Time and Change and Free Won’t

Time and change are two words we hear a lot in our lives.   With time, there never seems to be enough of it or the quality of it poor.    With change, it seems the opposite is true – it is happening everywhere with everything all the time and we wish it would stop.   That said, time and change have a great deal in common.  Both time and change are constants that we no ability to control and both can result in the same feelings of being rushed, overwhelmed and stressed.  

So the next question is given that we can’t increase time or stop change, what can we do to help ourselves maneuver the turbulence and stress created by the uncontrollable constants?

My own experiences have taught me that the answer lies how I respond to the limitations and challenges presented by time and change.  And how I respond is about making choices.   Choosing carefully how I spend my time and who I spend it with.    Choosing my response to change.   Accepting those things I can’t change, courageously taking action for those things I can and using the wisdom I have learned or am given to know the difference.   

Integral to the process of choosing is exercising ‘free won’t’ as much, or perhaps more, than ’free will’.    I recently learned more about ‘free won’t’ and how to effectively use it during recent coach training from Results Coaching Systems (www.workplacecoaching.com).   Free won’t is our ‘veto power’, the time it takes for our mind to determine how we are going to respond to the consciously registered desire to move.  It is about 0.3 of seconds out of a 0.6-0.7 second time between thought and action.   I use free won’t as a 0.3 second opportunity to tell myself to “STOP”, take a deep breath and choose to give myself more time to think about and decide how I will respond.   I am amazed how effective it can be to simply tell myself the word ‘STOP’ outloud as a means to interrupt my impulse to react.  Having discovered this I now use the same tool to give myself more time in my decision making.  The result – better choices and less stress. 

With this in mind my questions out to the world are:

How do you respond to the pressures from time and change?

What and how can you do things differently?

What areas of your life can you exercise ‘free won’t  to free up time and make change easier?

What other techniques and tools have you found to help with managing time and change better?

tiltability

Essentially everything in our universe strives to reach a state of   equilibrium or Homeostasis.   This principle applies to single individual entities to massive complex systems either metabolically, physicaly, socially or psychologically.    Paradoxically, while the drive or equilibrium is ongoing, there are always some other forces tilting the system off balance into a state of disequilibrium or change.  The result is a dynamic interconnetion between these two opposing yet complimentary states of equilibrium and change.  They are two sides of a same coin where one cannot exist without the other where the purpose of change itself is to reach a new state of balance and harmony. 

When it comes to poeple, by and large the preference is for the known or equilibrium over that of change.  In fact, it is fairly safe to state that people generally have difficultly with change.    It is part of why there is so much focus and time dedicated to the study for effectively managing change.   It is relatively simple to change situations when people are not involved, but the more people are impacted by a change, the more difficult change becomes.    Ironically, while people and beliefs, expectations, assumptions, concerns and hopes can present a significant obstacle to change, they are also the solution.   for withiout them, realizing successful sustainable change would be impossible. 

As a business and organizational development consultant and coach, I am acutely aware of the challenging phenomenon change presents for people.   It is for this reason why my my passion and primary area of practice is focused on facilitating positive change within and through people and people-driven systems.   Driving change, whether it’s personal, professional or organizational, requires some form of catalyst, either internally or externally imposed, to overcome the inertia inherent in people’s homeostatic circumstances.  The catalyst may be some political, environmental, sociological, technological, market or other force that inevitably tilts people and organizations out of their comfort zone and into wobbly uncertainty.  By empowering people with the necessary functional and soft skills of leadership, emotional and social intelligence, they are better equipped to positively manage change.   The best of who they are is expressed and shared, enabling a collaborative search for and implementation of sustainable options for transitioning more easily to a new changed state of equilibrium.     

Transitions

Transition is defined as a process or period in which something undergoes a change and passes from one state, stage, form, or activity to another.  Reflecting on the 15 months I spent working at PULSE Institute prompts a myriad of thoughts and feelings.  Like the PULSE frame that is the core of the company’s programs and work, my thoughts span the different time zones of the past, present and future.   I appreciate the opportunities, learnings and experiences it provided me.  It represented the chance to grow as a person on all levels – mind, body, emotion and spirit – in additon to meet and spend time with many amazing people.

What I know for sure is PULSE is a reflection of Nancy Love - her openness, intellect, creativity and gifted ability for making the complex simple and enabling others.  I learned so much about myself and the business of human development.    It afforded me the opportunity to to act upon my knowledge and thinking, thereby building and more fully integrating reflective-action capabilities.   During and after, the journey uncovered past events, provoking learning about what is important to me in the present.  These lessons form the basis of my criteria for being committed to do what it takes to get what I want in my life.   

Overall, my time with PULSE and the transition away from it mirrors the many dichotomies faced in life.   The dreams versus reality; hopes and fears, uplifting successses and painful disappointments.   Regardless, the experience stretched and taught me valuable lessons in preparation for what’s next.   The courage and confidence to take the leap of faith to transition onto a new path.  One enriched with new discoveries, learnings and contributions to others in whatever feasible and doable way can.   With me I have new knowledge, skills and tools for gentle, honest, open, specific talk in the art and science of conversation.   Change the words, change the world.

  Terry Tudor said this on May 30, 2008 at 5:04 pm

Evolution

As usual, I woke this morning reflecting on recent events in my life and what I have learned as a result.  Today’s theme was around change and personal growth.  I found myself asking those age old often rhetorical questions… What exactly goes on during change?  Why is it difficult and seem to happen so slowly?  Is there anything I could or would do differently to make it easier and occur quicker?  And of course I landed on that common human condition called 20-20 hindsight, “…if I only knew then what I know now.”   

I recall an article some years ago by Martha Beck called ‘Growing Wings’ in which she equates human transformation with the metamorphosis of a catapillar to a butterfly.   Martha suggests that that people go through 4 phases of metamorphosis at various stages in life and after any major catalyst such as getting or loosing a job, marriage, divorce, having children or when they leave home, etc.  And that how one manages these changes depends on the particular phase being experienced; Dissolving, Imagining, Re-forming, and Flying.

I found her explanation of the Dissolving Phase particularly insightful as she describes it as being a “time when we lose our identity and are left temporarily formless: person soup.”   Who of us can’t relate to that feeling?  I know I can.  That feeling where it seems our world as we know it is coming apart; losing all that is known and comfortable.  Martha Beck equates it to feeling like what death might be and in a way it is because ”it’s the demise of the person you’ve been.”  Read full article Here 

I am pondering this as I find myself in another period of change in my life.  It is not the first, nor do I anticipate it to be the last.  Looking back at my past occurances of significant change, I see and am thankful for the gifts realized through overcoming adversity.  Even though I sometimes wish it could have been easier, I know it was the difficulty of the experience that resulted in the deep change within.  While this involved some letting go - dissolving – of some previously held beliefs, I see it more as an evolution than a metamorphic revolution. 

Generally, evolution is defined as the gradual development of something into a more complex and better form.  In biology, it is a natural or artificially induced process by which new and different organisms develop as a result of changes in genetic material.   Theoretically, it is the proposed process by which all species developed from earlier forms of life through natural selection, i.e. natural variation in the genetic material favoring survival and reproduction to eventually give rise over generations to a population possessing the favorable traits.    Metaphorically, personal evolution involves modifications, sometimes small and sometimes large, built upong the foundational fabric of who we are as person to morph into who we are today.  As for who we will be in the future, this depends on the selection of choices made in response to given stimulus – positive and negative.

Post Script…Intuition or Reason?

Through a series of synchronous events, I happened across this article called ‘Right Brain Meets Left Brain: Applying Intuition to Business’ on The Banff Centre Leadership Development Library that is related and surprising aligned with my own thoughts on the topic of value of intuition.  In this article, Bill Overend succinctly outlines the growing evidence supporting not only the value of developing and using our intuition, but its necessity given the increasingly complex and fast paced nature of our world today.  The volume of available information coming at us everyday from multiple means and ways is growing exponentially.  The expectations for innovation and pressure to succeed are higher than ever before in our history.  These circumstances demand that engaging all of the power of our brain with our intuition playing a more important role and key success factor not less.  While the whole article is insightful, the heart of its message is how using intuition can help organizations today…

In his Harvard Business Review article “The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning,” McGill’s Henry Mintzberg made a compelling case for the use of intuition in strategy development. Mintzberg believes use of intuition in “strategic thinking” can deliver more relevant results than lengthy analytical planning exercises, particularly in the synthesis of information.

Better hiring decisions, staff motivation, increasing sales, assessing partnerships, predicting industry trends, as well as gaining vital and valuable insight into yourself and your associates are all business benefits ascribed to intuition.

Particularly worth examining is intuition’s relationship with innovation. Incorporating aspects of intuition into organizational development may help avoid the pitfalls of “data paralysis” in corporate life – and encourage a culture of innovation and calculated risk taking. Writes Tesolin: “Organizations don’t innovate, people do … the future is all about unleashing innovation and invention capacity to dream and then create … move a concept from the unimaginable to the conceivable and finally to the created.” The “guesses,” hunches,” and “gut feelings” of intuition may well be what separates “the innovators from the managers that follow their leaders.”

I find this all quite interesting and affirming considering I have felt like a ‘duck out of water’ most of my life.  I have frequently experienced the inner conflict of my right-brained intuitive sense telling me thing while the largely left-brained linear-thinking world dismissed this as nonsense and demanding rationalfacts.  Finally…intuition is gaining the credibility it deserves as a valuable component of human thinking and being.  INTUITION ROCKS!

Freedom Age

Today a friend sent me one of those inspirational type emails that flood our inbox.   You know, the ones that remind us about what is important in life – love, laughter, friendship, appreciation, and such…   

There are a lot of them and sometimes I find myself weary of the same old message.  Especially those ones that at the end say I better send to X number of people or else….?  What is that about anyway…seems a bit contradictory and hypocritical, don’t ya think. 

 Ooops, I digress…  

Anyway, even though I get a bunch of these, I do usually end up opening and reading them.  Why?  Because I am curious.  And because sometimes the message is just what I need to hear at that specific moment. 

Today, it was a message I needed to hear.  It was on the subject of aging.  Oh yea – that… the subject most of us avoid like the plague.   Well as it happens, I have recently been contemplating this matter as I imagine we all do from time to time.  Particularly as we come to those major marks of time passing.  Perhaps this was what is going on for me as I am in the final year of another decade of life where the next one is a very significant milestone.    And no I am not saying which one.  Anyway,  I found it to be quite wise and therefore am posting it to not only share with others, but for me to review when I need to.  Enjoy!

Old Age, I decided, is a gift.

I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother!), but I don’t agonize over those things for long.

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I’ve aged, I’ve become more kind to myself, and I am less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend.

I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60 & 70′s, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love … I will.

I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.

I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning grey, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face.. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it)

May your friendships never come apart especially whit’s straight from the heart!. May you always have a rainbow of smiles on your face and in your heart forever!

Hello World

 

“Always do the thing you fear the most.  Courage is an acquired taste, like cavier.”
- Erica Jong           

 Well I am finally taking the plunge and starting my own blog.  I have been resistant to doing so even though I have known about and read many others for years.  So I ask myself what is my resistance to doing this about?  One thing I have learned about myself over the years is that answers to such questions are usually the result of fear.  So the real question is what are the fears that have been holding me back from writing a blog?

A few answers come to me as I ponder this question.  Fear of nothing worthy to say.  Fear of exposing my thoughts to the world.  Fear that no one will read it.  Fear that if others do read it, they will disagree or worse reject me.  Fear of being or perceived by others as inadequate in some way.   All those old self-sabatoging thoughts come rushing back …”Who do I think I am to think I am worthy enough to… whatever?”

Then I remember how I gathered the courage for overcoming other events I feared in my life.  Reflecting on these occurances, I recall how doing so I was able to realize significant personal and professional growth.  This is not to say it was all smooth as soon as faced fear and took action.  There were challenges making it very difficult at times.   I made mistakes and I have not always been accepted or liked by others.   And this was okay too because through adversity I learned even more, gained confidence and was able to help others more.  Funny how that works. 

So with this in mind, I embark on this new experience of starting a blog to share my thoughts and experiences with whomever wishes to partake.  And who knows, maybe along the way what is written resonates, imparts some wisdom or give permission to others do the same.  Let the adventure begin.

“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? …playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you …We are all meant to shine…And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”  - Marianne Williamson