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Intuition at work— how to follow your curiosity
Have you ever had a sixth sense feeling that something was off, a small prickling of your intuition? I’ve heard stories from some of my trusted friends about feeling an ache in their right leg, and later on finding out that a close relative had injured his leg at that same time. As a surfer, I’ve had this feeling in the water. A tingling that something was not right. It’s happened multiple times, and one of those times I later learned of a shark sighting at the break I surfed that day. Often we dismiss and forget these feelings of intuition— this makes no sense, it’s not logical.
Most people know me as a skeptic. Full of questions to examine and pick out the most rational and logical answers. I trained in the Stanford computer science department. Despite this, I am learning to trust my intuition.
How do you listen to your gut and how do you express intuition in the workplace?
As a product design leader at Facebook, I remember debating the merits of a gut decision with other technologists. We all could get on board with having an understanding of the qualitative research, knowing what the data & metrics said, and when the direction was ambiguous, having to make a gut decision. We agreed, however, that the gut decision was based on years of experience that is likely a subconscious pattern matching based on prior situations that have been encountered.
While that is a fine approach, it’s lacking an aspect of faith and trust in oneself. We have an instinct for what’s right and wrong about certain situations. Our leadership will show up more powerfully if we surrender to this intuitive knowing without having to rationalize it. We will be more powerful if we embrace the magic of our intuition.
I vividly remember coming home after an interview with a Series B startup focusing on big data cleansing & visualization. I flopped down on my bed and moaned. You see, I knew that I was going to work there and my head was fighting that knowledge. This was weeks before an offer eventually was made and I received multiple other offers and eventually decided to go to this startup. My gut knew that it was right for me. My head said that the product wasn’t the most interesting. I didn’t think that I wanted to…
