Why do certain leaders appear to make all the right moves? Why do certain mothers know what is wrong with their children just by looking at their eyes? Why do some people have all the luck? Why are some folks just seemingly in the right place at the right time?
Expert intuition appears to be magical. It is not.
Most of us pick up the phone and within the first words of a call detect anger, elation, and quickly extrapolate to what’s next. Almost all of us have experienced the sense that the person in the car next to us is staring, only to turn our heads and receive a creepy confirmation. And, we’ve all walked into a room and instantly known that we were the subject of the conversation.
According to Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize and author of the book, Thinking Fast AND Slow, “Expert intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition.”
If you want to improve your quick decision making skills you need to improve your recognition. For instance if recruiting new talent is critical to your new venture, do not trust your gut. Do not focus on industry experience and expertise. Do not go looking for “the look.” Do not do what most every recruiter does.
Instead, develop more probing questions and tune into body language and how it aligns with the words. When you sense alignment go deeper, when you sense you’re being sold, get out. Develop this as a durable discipline and overtime and through adversity, your sense will improve. Your ability to recognize talent that can be trusted will too. Your new hires will be better.
Accurate intuitions of experts, it turns out, are better explained by the effects of “deliberate practice” than by magic. Funny, huh…
BUILT TO LEAD 