ABSTRACT
The third leg of the trilogy is “gut”, or intuition, which also has a long metaphorical tradition.
We are commonly advised to “trust your intuition”, but while this has some undoubted validity – and professionals need to value and nurture their intuitive faculties – we also need to understand what we mean by “intuition”, and how it can sometimes lead us astray.
The title of David G Myers’ book Intuition: Its Powers and Perils sums up the position: intuition can be powerful but if followed indiscriminately it can be disastrous. We use mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to arrive at many of our intuitive decisions, but these can be deceptive and flawed, so it is vital for us to know when we can and when we can’t rely on them and on our intuitions generally. The chapter outlines many of these intuitive cautions.
The key lies in complementary thinking: integrating our intuition, emotions and logical thinking into a coherent decision-making process.
