Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.
—Jonas Salk
Intuition is often associated with expressions like “good guess,” “go with your instincts,” and “watch for signals,” to name a few. I suppose this is because the definition of intuition is “to acquire knowledge without inference or rational thought”—in other words, to think without thinking. Some people shy away from their intuition, a big mistake in any organization. Intuition isn’t magic, and it’s not irrational. Intuition is a powerful, heightened state of awareness that can enable employees to discover opportunities to exceed their customers’ expectations—creating experiences that won’t soon be forgotten. It’s up to leaders to make it safe for their people to exercise and apply their intuition.
While some leaders believe that intuition has no place in business, instead preferring that all decisions of any consequence be based solely on objective data and numbers, I fundamentally disagree with this point of view. Yes, objective data and numbers have their place and must be considered when making decisions, especially those that have the greatest impact on an organization, but intuition also has an important place: it can be powerfully accurate and should not be ignored.
This chapter explores intuition from a different point of view: how employees who are empowered to use their intuition in business settings can make a difference in the prospects of the company. Practiced and used properly, the application of intuition by your people can have strong, positive effects on your company’s reputation, brand, and ability to attract customers in good and, even more important, in difficult and uncertain times.
The secret of making intuition work in a business environment is allowing your people to practice and use it. It’s as simple as that. I think of intuition as having the skill and ability to listen to clients or customers and then take actions that will surprise and delight them. When you think of intuition in this manner, there is little to no downside. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain in allowing your employees to use their intuition for the good of your company.
Recent studies have shown that trusting your gut can be a powerfully effective approach to decision making. According to a study reported in the November 2012 issue of the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes by researchers from Rice University, Boston College, and George Mason University, there are specific conditions under which intuition is a good way to make the right decision. Says study coauthor Michael Pratt, “What we found demystifies a lot of the information out there that says that intuition isn’t as effective as if you sat down and walked through an analytical approach.”1
According to the researchers, intuition is most effective when you already have expertise in the area or organization in which you’re making your decisions. The more expert you are, the better your intuitive decisions. However, says Erik Dane, the lead author of the study, “Even if you’re an expert, intuitive decision-making is better for some types of tasks than others. Tasks that can be solved through predetermined steps, like math problems, are not as conducive to intuitive decision-making as less-structured tasks, which may include certain strategic or human resource management problems.”2
At Umpqua we seek out associates who are intuitive. These are people who listen well, meaning they are looking for opportunities to exceed customers’ expectations, thereby creating an experience that won’t soon be forgotten. They are people who will help your company stand out.
I’ll never forget the time I spent the night at a Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City before leaving the next day for a vacation in Morocco. After my wife and I checked in at the reception desk, a young woman escorted us to our room, and while on the elevator she casually asked about our plans in New York. We explained that this was a brief stopover as we were leaving for Morocco the next morning. She exclaimed, “Really! The head of housekeeping here at the hotel is originally from Morocco and she’s always talking about how beautiful it is.”
We didn’t think too much of the conversation because we needed to get cleaned up before heading out for dinner that evening. When we returned to our room later that night, we were in for a surprise. On our desk was a beautiful coffee table picture book of Morocco, with a note from the head housekeeper telling us her name, where in Morocco she came from, and how much she hoped we would enjoy her wonderful country.
Now, would that have surprised you? Did she make us feel incredibly special? You bet she did. It sounds easy, but actually there were a lot of moving parts to accomplish this small random act of kindness. First, the receptionist must have thought, Wow, this is a great opportunity to show our guests how customer-friendly our hotel is. Next, she contacted the head housekeeper, who then took time out of her busy schedule to make arrangements for the book to be purchased at a local bookstore and delivered to our room along with her personal note.
These were people who were empowered by Ritz-Carlton’s management to act. Did it make my stay in New York a little more special? Definitely. As you can see, I’m still talking about it. And when I’m in New York, the Ritz is where I stay.
Some people would say, “Wow, what a great thing for that associate to do,” and I would agree. But I also recognize, “What a terrific management team.” They’re allowing their people to exercise and practice their intuition by listening to and looking for opportunities to wow their customers.
Companies like Ritz that empower and incent their people to use their intuition are practicing a form of differentiation. All companies big or small, private or public, are looking for ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors and opportunities to stand out in a positive manner, trying to persuade potential customers to skip by their competitors and shop with them. It’s a basic business survival strategy. Sure—we use marketing, advertising, product delivery systems, the Internet, promotions, and much more to advance our company’s name and products, and all of these different things certainly help. But think what happens when you add to the mix empowered people who are encouraged to look for ways to delight their customers. It’s transformational, it’s a momentum builder, and it’s powerful.
Too few companies empower and incent their people to use their intuition because too few companies, and therefore too few people, get the opportunity to activate this side of themselves. There are companies that don’t practice it at all and companies that are very good at it. In my mind, the companies that excel at it stand out from the rest of the pack, especially when it comes to their customer relations. You need to have great customer relations in both good and bad times.
Intuition is hard to teach, but it can be learned if people are given permission to practice using it without intimidation. The use of this type of intuition can catch on with your people; I like to think of it as being contagious in a good way. Unfortunately many people aren’t given the opportunity to practice or use their intuition due to policies and strict procedures handed down by higher-ups. This is a mistake.
When we introduced the idea of empowerment to our associates at Umpqua Bank, we weren’t surprised by the deer-in-the-headlights look we received from many of them. At first they were intimidated by the idea of being able to make customer service decisions. We expected this: When a switch has been turned off for a long time, simply turning it back on doesn’t produce instant results. We realized we were going to have to make sure our associates understood that it was okay to practice using their new authority.
It turned out, however, that encouraging them wasn’t enough to get this engine started. It was very much like the old Life cereal television commercial that aired back in the 1980s with the young brothers who say, “Let’s get Mikey! Let’s see if he likes it [the cereal]!” In other words, our people wanted assurances from us that it was in fact safe to practice their empowerment and use their intuition. Once we realized what the hesitation was about, we went to work. We introduced new incentive plans that rewarded our people with cash and prizes if they practiced their intuition, and we started an internal recognition plan for those who did. Not only did it start the intuition engine, it created a new level of excitement and enthusiasm within the company that we’d never seen before. Our people were having fun. And our customers benefited from all this practice.
Business leaders have to acknowledge that empowered people can create momentum for an organization with little downside. In good times it’s terrific, and in uncertain times, it’s incredibly important. Empower your people to practice doing what they think is right for your customers and give them the freedom to enjoy it.
When I write about empowerment, it reminds me that it’s about giving our associates here at Umpqua the ability to use their good judgment with our customers. It’s liberating: When they have the authority to make customer service decisions, they understand that management trusts them. It also clearly indicates that we believe their opinions and actions count.
In Leading for Growth, I wrote about a concept I call positive passion, which I described as “optimism coupled with passion.” All leaders have to be optimistic and passionate about their goals, actions, and people if they are to be effective. Practicing these two words is not an option for leadership; it’s required. I also believe we should add another word to the list, intuition. Knowing when and how to use intuition is a competitive edge builder for leaders that shouldn’t be ignored. But you have to practice.
At Umpqua, we empower our people so consistently that if they want to do something nice for a customer, they just do it. They don’t ask for permission. We trust them—we know they’re going to do the right thing. And they do. All twenty-five hundred of them.
I believe that using your intuition is related to using your instincts—the two are very closely connected. The worn-out expression that our grandmothers used to tell us that “if it feels too good to be true it probably is” still applies to our personal and business lives. Instincts often warn us that something may be wrong, just as it can alert us when something feels right.
When you walk down a dark alley and hear footsteps behind you, the hair on the back of your neck stands up, and you may think, I’ve got to get out of here now! Your intuition and instincts are telling you that something doesn’t feel right, and your brain tells you that you need to act.
This kind of intuition also works in the business environment. For example, you may see a trend in your business or industry that feels wrong or off-base and is worrisome. In cases like this, some people may tell you, “No worries, this is under control, we’ve got it,” and yet you decide, “No, I’ve got to do something about it,” whether that means curtailing operations in one area or providing additional resources in another. The difference between being right or wrong can decide success and failure, business survival and extinction. “Practice makes perfect,” as they say, but knowing when to act is when you “put the pedal to the metal!”
So how do you know if you’re using your intuition at work, or if you’ve instead put it on the back burner or hidden it away in a closet? Here’s a set of questions you can ask yourself, developed by management professor Eugene Sadler-Smith and organizational development expert Erelly Shefy:
All business leaders spend a lot of time on the tangible aspects of their business—the financial reports, the new product launches, the marketing plans, the employee rewards and recognition programs, and much more. They have to pay attention to the tangible aspects of their business, and they should. Unfortunately many don’t give enough attention to the intangible elements of their business, which prove in many cases to be what really makes the organization stand apart from competitors. It’s also true that when difficulties arise, the intangibles are too often sacrificed or cut out first.
During the Great Recession, I watched companies terminate sustainability programs, slash employee authority, and waive personal and corporate standards—all in the name of cutting costs. I agree that drastic measures are sometimes required. However, management should also weigh the impact these types of actions have on their employees and the messages that they send. I believe leaders need to pay more attention to those intangibles that help form the very foundation of their company. Allowing proper space and time for the use of intuition is certainly one those, as are reputation, culture, ethics, and morals. These are the invisible assets that all great companies possess and are vital to the business and its people.
While it’s important for leaders to follow their intuition in all business conditions, intuition becomes even more important when conditions are uncertain. When your company’s ability to thrive or even survive is in question, you need every good idea you can possibly get, no matter how large or how small it might be.
In a way, acting on your intuition is closely related to being creative. If you’re totally analytical and numbers driven, you may end up constraining your thinking within the box the data lays out. When you act on your intuition, you open up your mind to the vast universe of possibilities—many of which may not be the direct result of whatever data your organization is providing you with.
At its core intuition is about listening; it’s not some magical thing that you either have or don’t have. It’s being focused and zeroing in on people. When you’re intuitive, you’re listening closely to what others have to say, and watching and feeling intently. You’re observing everything that’s going on around you and taking it all in, increasing the amount of data that you’re gathering and processing. This all becomes fuel for your intuition.
However, there’s more to intuition than just listening to others and watching what they do. Of equal importance in the intuitive process is what you do with your intuition once you have it. If you do nothing, it will quickly evaporate, and you may never see the thought behind it again. Intuition can bring you all sorts of opportunities, but you have to have the courage to trust and act on them, even when the data do not necessarily say that an opportunity is a good one.
The CEO of a major energy corporation explained: “Ignoring them [intuitions] has led to some bad decisions . . . you have to learn to trust your intuition. Otherwise, at the point when you’ve gathered enough data to be 99.99 percent certain that the decision you’re about to make is the correct one, that decision has become obsolete.”4
As a leader, you should encourage the people in your organization to act on their intuition. You can play a large role in whether your people use their intuition, and then whether they act on it when ideas or opportunities present themselves. You can do this by reinforcing intuition in your company culture and making people feel empowered and safe to use their intuition. And when employees come to you with the ideas and opportunities that their intuition generated, be sure to listen to what they have to say and then adopt as many of these ideas and pursue as many of these opportunities as you reasonably can.
Intuition is like any other skill you’ve got: the more you practice, the better you’ll get at it. If you’re a baseball player and you don’t take time to practice your batting, you’re not going to be a good hitter. If you’re a golfer and you don’t go to the driving range to practice hitting golf balls, you’re not going to become the best golfer you can be. Similarly, if you don’t practice exercising your intuition, it can get rusty and wither away. Practice will improve your intuitive skills, helping them to become second nature as you regularly exercise them.
We want our associates at Umpqua Bank to be in tune with their customers and to use their intuition and act on it, just like the Ritz-Carlton employee who learned that I would soon be traveling to Morocco and bought and delivered a book about the country. To help encourage our associates to do this, we created a Wow! blog on our company intranet where associates share their stories of wowing our customers with everyone in the company. Stories fall within these seven “superpower” categories:
Associates are encouraged to post their stories to share with their fellow associates. Here are a few examples:
These stories, and many others like them, show that when people are encouraged to be intuitive and then act on their intuition, great things can happen for the organization—and for its people, customers, and communities. It’s for this reason that every leader should encourage employees to regularly exercise their intuition.
Notes
1. “Trust Your Gut: Intuitive Decision-Making Based on Expertise May Deliver Better Results Than Analytical Approach,” Science Daily, December 20, 2012, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121220144155.htm/.
2. “In Decision-Making, It Might Be Worth Trusting Your Gut,” December 14, 2012, Science Daily, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121214191243.htm
3. Eugene Sadler-Smith and Erella Shefy, “The Intuitive Executive: Understanding and Applying ‘Gut Feel’ in Decision-Making,” Academy of Management Executive 18 (2004): 80–81.
4. A. M. Hayashi, “When to Trust Your Gut,” Harvard Business Review (February 2001), 59–65.