A Secret CEO Tool That Drives Success: Harnessing Your Intuition

What do you really need to be an outstanding CEO? Of course you need experience, knowledge, vision, strategic thinking, business and financial acumen, emotional intelligence and inspiration in buckets. But they alone won’t guarantee your success. You’re successful as a leader because you make the right calls particularly under pressure, when circumstances are opaque, there are several possible answers, and time is running out.

But how do you do that? 

In today’s business landscape, data-driven strategies dominate the decision-making process and quite rightly. Unfortunately, relying only on spreadsheets and analysis limits everyone’s thinking when it comes to navigating uncertainty, or the times when you need to make quick, accurate decisions in a fast-moving context. That’s when intuition is such an invaluable tool because it captures the full value, subtilty and range of the human experience, something which AI or algorithms can never do.

And there’s plenty of solid research which shows that when CEOs use intuition, they make better strategic decisions; problem-solve more effectively; assess and analyze risks better; and make more effective hires, to name a few essential activities. In essence, intuition helps you cut through as you make good decisions, and just as importantly, stops you making some bad ones.

Research among CEOs confirms that intuition specifically helps in two instances. The first is a personal experience which enables you to derive meaning and direction from numbers and models, correctly interpreting signal vs noise. It’s that strong sense of “it’s definitely this answer, not these others” when there is no real clarity. Yet if you try to unwind and explain your intuition, what you say is never as powerful as the intensity of your internal event.  The second is an interpersonal experience as you facilitate and guide your senior team to reach new and important decisions as a group. This isn’t brainstorming: it’s arriving at fresh insights and direction from group discussion which goes beyond the numbers. And when asked, senior execs always say that this is the most fun part of the job.

Both personal and interpersonal intuitive experiences are particularly interesting because neither are formally taught in any business school. And in my experience, they often aren’t addressed inside organizations either. It’s always curious to me that most probably as a leader you’ve been taught how to program a spreadsheet, but you never were shown how to listen yourself. But when the heat is on it’s too late! You can’t be intuitive about the big things if you haven’t practiced on the smaller stuff beforehand and then learned to trust yourself with your answers.

And why does this matter? When asked, CEOs emphasize that a solid intuitive ability is one of the most noticeable differences between their best leaders and the also-rans.

The implications of this are two-fold. First as a CEO or senior leader, you need to understand, reflect on and be able to talk about your intuition. Tell us how it operates, and what shows up for you. Is it gut? Heart? Energy? A feeling of knowing? Mind images or metaphors?  Do your intuitions materialize fast, or do you need to sleep on and incubate them? How do coincidences and synchronicities show up in your world – or don’t they? Having conversations about what works for you allows others to recognize and tune into what works for them. And once you know about others different experiences, you can start to experiment with your own.

The good news is that intuition is a skill that’s learnable. Yes, it’s a bit like math: some people are geniuses, but everyone can add two and two, then get better from there. That research is totally clear. The easiest way to get better is to stop, slow down and ask yourself what your gut is telling you. Paying attention is half the battle. Then diary what you get to get feedback on your accuracy. You don’t need to capture a mass of information, and a note in your phone is enough. But what you’re aiming for should be specific and accurate because good intuitions are in fact the same as good data.

To conclude, here’s what Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren said when I interviewed him for my book ‘Intuition at Work’:

“Intuition cuts across everything that one does, whether it’s in people management, or deal making, or whatever the case may be. Yes, decision-making is data driven, but then you need to add your personal experience and what your gut is telling you, because data doesn’t give you all the answers. It gives you some of the answers to make decisions from. At the end of the day, you still need to make a call.”

And it’s those calls which cumulatively will determine your success. And finally, do remember that if you’re not using your intuition, you can bet that your competitors will be.

Written by Jessica Pryce-Jones.

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