Good Decision Making

Instinct or intuition is a powerful ally in the making of good decisions. Malcolm Gladwell illustrated much about this in his best seller, Blink.

Of the many Gladwell tells, the story of Paul Van Riper is interesting. Van Riper is a Vietnam veteran who was in the Joint Forces Millennium Challenge (a war game). Van Riper ran the Red team… a completely fictional, anti-American Mid-East government competing against the Blue team, the U.S.

Red team had much less technology. Van Riper's operating strategy was that he was “in command, but out of control” and by placing appropriate trust in his subordinates, he would enable good instinctive decisions. His combat experience helped him trust his gut. Blue team had all the advanced warfare technology and tactics. All decisions were made based on information provided by a huge system of data gathering, and modeling algorithms.

Red Team used a series of unconventional, rapid and mobile attacks to easily defeat the Blue team. They were too slow, attempting to fit the attack into analytical models. Instinct based on experience defeated analysis.

One of the book's points is that intuition or instinct comes from your experience: in life, in business and in trusting your gut.

I’ve met entrepreneurs who have been through so much in their business lives, that they just know what is appropriate in any given situation. They have been there and done it and they act quickly.

You don’t always have instant conscious access to what feels right, but it is there in your subconscious mind. You keep the many lessons you’ve learned from your business and it shows up in your gut.

Your Personal Experiences

Whether you have years of business background or not, you still notice what makes sense. That feeling is based on the personal experiences you have had in your life.

In order to survive, you learned. Your internal decision maker has been developing and it can be a very powerful tool for you in operating your business.

Your personal experience, thoughts and choices determine your core values… the important things are core to you and you don’t consciously think about them. You just know what is right versus what is wrong, for you. It's part of your make-up.

Some people faced with a choice, make quick decisions. Some only choose after careful analysis. These approaches to life are different and your background and experiences, including what you were taught all has an impact on your decision-making.

Experimenting and training yourself to trust your gut, pays off later in good quick decisions. Similar to business experience, you can’t necessarily pinpoint where a particular decision came from, but you know what’s right for you.

Intuition

Many people don’t believe in intuition. It’s hard to explain. Well I can’t explain it, but I won’t ignore it either. There have been far too many times where something has just come to mind. That sense is what I am calling intuition.

Is it based in our business experience, or our personal background, or something else?

I don’t know. Here’s what I do know. If I trust my own gut sense, which is a combination of all this, then I seem to make more decisions that are right for me.

Here are some other "Blink" articles from around the web… 

Book 11/48: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell - The most recent book is that of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book Malcolm builds a case for a persons intuition and ability to make good and/or right decisions during the first instances of making a judgment. …

Living by Instinct - Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink - You see, I just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, a book that dissects the relevance of instinct in decision making. Weaving together an eclectic blend of personal anecdotes, interviews, and old psych papers, Gladwell spells out both …

CREATIVITY, INTUITION, AND GLADWELL’S “BLINK THINKING” - In his best-selling book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking(Little Brown, 2005), Malcolm Gladwell justified the importance of intuitive, “gut” thinking in decision making. In fact, he pointed out that, contrary to our …