How to listen to your gut

I attended a very interesting (and rather entertaining) public lecture at the London School of Economics earlier this week. This in itself is an experience I recommend, be it for the strange feeling it gives you to sit into a university auditorium in the presence of students again.

The lecture was given by eminent psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer of the Centre for Adaptive Behaviour and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. It was entitled "Gut Feelings: short cuts to better decision making", and Dr Gigerenzer made, with a certain sense of humour, the point that in many circumstances decisions are better made by relying on the gut feeling of experts rather than the lengthy (and costly) pros-and-cons analysis that can sometimes come in the way of success.

Another interesting point was that gut feeling was not recognised there to be the "unconscious" version of a quicker pros-and-cons calculation than we usually make consciously with spreadsheets and comparative analysis, but definitely a completely different process calling in to other capabilities in the brain. Our presenter talked about "fast and simple heuristics" (defined there as decision strategies that ignore information, instead of trying to incorporate as much information as possible into the decision making process).

If you weren't lucky enough to attend the lecture, then you could also read the book (same title as the lecture, above). And in the same spirit, what was discussed reminded me very much of another book that made a similar case for gut feelings: "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking", by Malcolm Gladwell.

I found myself wondering how many times I had relied on such strategies into my daily life, and how much of this could apply to business as well.

Certainly, I concluded that the best decisions, those that resulted in fruitful, rich experiences and learnings, had been made on my part not only by following gut feelings, but also by ignoring rational logic (often impersonated by caring friends asking me with a worried look: "why?" or "are you sure you want to do this?").

I think this was also the case in successful things that I achieved at work - in hiring talented staff that ended up bringing something unconventional and beneficial to a team, for example. I am also, by the way, always a bit doubtful regarding the benefits of countless interviews and, worse, psychometric testing.

All in all, I reckon that it pays to trust yourself and be bold.