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Emotions vs Intuition (Pt 1): Conceptual Difference

By Mike Lehr

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Feelings, Emotions, Intuition - Difference

BreadIntuition helps us acquire knowledge and make decisions via our emotions. Just as facts drive cognitive conclusions, emotions drive intuitive ones. As we saw with the food analogy where feelings are ingredients and emotions the foods, intuition develops interpretations of the meal based on the foods. Is it breakfast, lunch or dinner, a formal or informal occasion? Is the meal ethnic, fast food, vegetarian, or gourmet?

A good way to understand the difference between emotions and intuition is understand conceptually how they work together. Once done, Part 2 will dive into specific, operational differences and Part 3 into examples of differences.

Since emotions urge us to action, those urges give us insights. These insights are vaguer than we are accustomed with cognitive aspects of decision making such as reason and logic. Intuition and cognition form two complementary parts of decision-making. If intuition is the compass, cognition is the map. If intuition is the radar, cognition is a sighting.

Generally, a single emotion will dominate and drive the insight just as the main course can drive the interpretation of the meal. It’s human nature though to overemphasize a single aspect of a problem to formulate a conclusion. This happens much when relying upon instinct rather than intuition. Regardless, we need to fight this tendency.

That’s important because each emotion refines our direction. For example, using the compass analogy, the dominant emotion might narrow our 360-degree view to a 45-degree field. The other emotions refine it further. Without them, we might mistakenly head for the field’s center. Leaving out emotions is akin to leaving out important facts in a cognitive decision.

Admittedly, this is conceptual. Part 2 will take a deeper dive into specifics. Still, for some, this is already enough to help them visualize what they’ve been intuiting from their emotions.

 

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Categories: Analogies, Cognition, Emotions, Feelings, Feelings Emotions Intuition - Difference (Series), Instinct, Intuition, Intuition Fundamentals, Problem Solving, Series, Unconscious
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Feelings vs Emotions: The Difference

By Mike Lehr

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Feelings, Emotions, Intuition - Difference

BreadIn a previous post, I outlined the differences among feelings, emotions and intuition. Using a food analogy, feelings are ingredients, emotions are foods and intuition is the message the meal gives us. This post dives deeper into the difference between feelings and emotions.

As the food analogy implies, many feelings can comprise an emotion. Beyond this, the primary difference between the two is the “call to action” emotions prompt in us. After all, the word emotion breaks into e-motion, meaning, “to bring out motion.”

In this sense, feelings are nouns and emotions are verbs, feelings are a state of being and emotions a state of motion. For instance, the emotion driving us to help someone can contain many feelings such as empathy, happiness, guilt, sadness and pity. In fact, all these feelings might play in some form or another:

  • Empathy can encourage us to change the feeling of others so we can share it.
  • Happiness can encourage us to spread it directly or indirectly.
  • Guilt can encourage us to “return a favor.”
  • Sadness can encourage us to correct the problem.
  • Pity can encourage us to help those who can’t help themselves.

While each of these feelings can stand alone as an emotion, in virtually all cases emotions are an integration of many feelings. We just won’t realize it. Moreover, when others ask, “Why did you do that?” we will tend to find a rationale that fits but won’t necessarily represent our feelings. Some feelings will be very conscious but others won’t be.

Again, the food analogy has been helpful to people. Beyond that if we remember emotions comprise feelings and represent a state of motion, we’ll be able to distinguish them from feelings in a way that will help us understand and appreciate ourselves better.

 

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Categories: Analogies, Conscious, Emotions, Empathy, Feelings, Feelings Emotions Intuition - Difference (Series), Intuition, Rationalizing, Series, Unconscious
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Natural Mistake of Grouping

By Mike Lehr

Combined 01Look at the figure to the right. The top is a multicolored square, the bottom a gray one. Yet, only one single attribute distinguishes the two: the top is a 10,000-x magnification of the bottom. The “gray” square is too large for me to load on the blog; however, if you copy and magnify it, you can begin to make out the multicolored squares although condensing added grayness.

Why is this interesting? Well, it shows how our minds work to help us . . . and delude us. Our physical attributes can teach us about our non-physical ones. For instance, if everyone is physically unique, then we can reasonable conclude everyone has unique personalities too.

These diagrams taught me two things. First, even though the individual squares are too small for my eyes, my eyes must put something in that space. Similar to the blind spot our eyes fill, my eyes automatically do this. Second, my eyes blur individual distinctions to fill the void with gray, thus simplifying things for me.

Our minds do the same with mental complexities such as people. For instance, upon entering a room filled with three hundred people, we work to fill our knowledge void by asking something like, “What group is this?” or “Who are these people?” Thus, mentally we process individual complexities (multicolored squares) into a simplified group (one gray square).

Grouping speeds our assimilation of knowledge at the expense of depth. Grouping comforts us with the illusion that we know something. It quickly fills our knowledge void similar to the way fast food fills our hungry stomachs with empty calories. Therefore, in business, grouping creates targets of opportunities if we are motivated to dive into the details, especially with talent. Grouping is natural, but no two people are the same.

 

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Categories: Analogies, Approaches, Assumptions, Emotions, Instinct, Knowledge, Learning, Personality, Problem Solving, Talent
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Your Brain, the Final Frontier

By Mike Lehr
Brain Mapping

Brain Mapping

“Space, the final frontier” introduced Star Trek’s original series, but assessments of our human knowledge indicate that the space between our ears is more of a frontier than the space above our heads is. That is a major reason the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has proposed that the Next Big Thing be “to solve biology’s most mysterious problem: how the brain works.” (“Only Connect” [The Economist, February 23, 2013 edition]).

The project’s scale will be on par with the public and private investment made in the Human Genome Project, thus focusing funding and federal attention. Regardless of the project’s outcome, the main point is that knowledge of our brain is sparse. In fact, analogizing it to a road map:

It is like trying to navigate America with an atlas that shows the states, the big cities and the main highways, and has a few street maps of local neighbourhoods, but displays nothing in between. (“Hard Cell” [The Economist, March 9, 2013 edition]).

The secondary point is that scientists are becoming increasingly confident that technological advancements make this doable. Combine our low knowledge base with these advancements, and a strong case exists for the greatest advancement in this decade being in understanding ourselves. This will advance management theory well beyond its classical 1950’s roots of management by objectives much as it has spawned Behavioral Economics from Traditional Economics.

Thus, rather than view individuals as rational actors with free will (more), we will move toward viewing ourselves as heavily influenced by emotions, conditions and many other biological, genetic and chemical functions. Employers making this jump early will have a distinct advantage. So, if you’re looking for a new frontier to tackle, try examining the one between your ears. No one else really knows what’s there.

 

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Categories: Analogies, Behavioral Economics, Cognition, Conditional, Context, Decision Making, Emotions, Free Will, Influence, Intuition, Management, Performance, Personality, Technological Advancements, Unconscious
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My 300th Post: Thank You for Your Encouragement, Motivation

By Mike Lehr

Thank You (Reddish Orange & Gold)

Unlike my 100th and 200th posts, I knew my 300th would arrive. This year saw substantial jump in visitors, so it’s like this: before if I stopped blogging few would notice, now quite a few would. Heck, people notice if I’m not online for a few days.

All this produces a pleasant feeling of responsibility. Yes, I enjoy writing for myself and learning that someone likes what I write, but when that writing actually helps, it becomes a tool and rewarding to me. My series on Emotional Self-defense for Sensitive People is the best example of this.

When you strip back this responsibility, you find people . . . and more importantly, individuals. What differs with my 300th post from my other hundredfold posts is this: whereas meeting people was fun, exciting and inspirational – all of which is still true – I now appreciate more the encouragement and motivation they give me.

I’ve come to appreciate these more because in my real life, business has been increasingly good, active and challenging. Yes, positive, but many times I’ve wondered whether those priorities will allow me to continue with this blog and other social media activities. But, it never fails. When my most serious doubts begin to infect me, blog visitors say something about what I’ve written and they overrun those doubts for me.

Yes, I am extremely thankful for those antibiotics: your encouragement and motivation.

However, the challenge in my blog’s growth is recognizing all of those who have helped me and who make my life better. Please review those I mentioned in my 100th and 200th posts, many continue. In the meantime, here are those whom I wish to acknowledge publicly. I believe adding them to your lives will make your lives better too:

 

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Categories: Compliment, Emotions, Feelings, Inspiration, Intuition, Motivation, Personality, Relationship Building, Sensitivity, Social Media, Technology, Words
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Intelligence vs. Wisdom (Pt 2): Magical Difference

By Mike Lehr

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Intelligence vs Wisdom

As I had posted earlier, one cannot be wise without sensitivity to the human condition. This means wisdom has innate, emotional, intangible and synergistic attributes, making it more dependent on the person than intelligence is and thus more magical. We can see this if we dive into the various aspects of wisdom as seen in Figure 1 and order them hierarchically along these attributes.

Wisdom's Magical Hierarchy

Figure 1: Wisdom’s Magical Hierarchy

Information occupies the bottom. Even computers collect it. Above is knowledge, combining the information into themes, theories, categories and disciplines. Reason comes next, linking bodies of knowledge in ways that make them applicable. At some point, we apply these three to create experiences. However, what two people learn from the same experience will differ, thus giving experience innateness.

Part of what makes the same experience different is situational awareness. People are born with differing levels of awareness, allowing some to extract more from each drop of experience than others do. Above this is intuition. It provides direction so we can sift through all the other aspects more efficiently and effectively. Finally, creativity applies all of these (information, knowledge, reason, experience, awareness and intuition) to solve everyday problems. Since every event is unique, we will need creativity to apply what we’ve learned to our situation.

As we move up the hierarchy, we progress from those aspects of wisdom that are more learned to more innate, more logical to emotional, more tangible to intangible, and more additive to synergistic. For instance, two married individuals produce much more than just the sum of their personalities. This also applies in business to create a more innovative and creative environment.

It’s the innate, emotional, intangible and synergistic attributes of these seven aspects of wisdom that give it a magical, wizardry sense. It’s why we can quantify intelligence but not wisdom.

 

Related post: Intelligence vs. Wisdom: Primary Difference

 

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Categories: Approaches, Arbitrariness, Awareness, Cognition, Creativity, Education, Emotions, Experience, Innovation, Intelligence vs Wisdom, Intuition, Knowledge, Learning, Logic, Personality, Problem Solving, Reason
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Emotions and Intuition as Foundation of All Decisions

By Mike Lehr

OZA No 292 (Emotion & Intuition as Foundation for All Decisions)One of the more contrarian perspectives that has helped me appreciate people’s decisions is that emotions and its interpretive big sister, intuition, form their foundation. Even a logical decision comes about because of a person’s emotional preference for logic.

While this does not mean logic, reason and rationales are not involved; it does mean they take a secondary, dependent role similar to the way the frame of a house is dependent upon the foundation. In our decision-making, it means we select the rationale (frame) to fit our emotional preferences (foundation), which we more commonly experience as rationalizing.

Increasingly though, as technology and research methodologies advance, science supports this. For instance, the article, “Captain Kirk’s Revenge” (The Economist, December 23, 2006 edition), discusses a person who lost his emotional functions in his brain could not make decisions even though the rational portions were in tack. However, those who lost their rational functions could still do so if their emotional ones remained.

This is understandable when we consider people need motivation to make decisions and motivation is emotional. Rationales alone won’t motivate unless they stimulate our emotions. That is why the root word of emotions is “motion.” It’s active, whereas logic, reason and rationale are inert.

We further see the progress in this perspective with the research of Roderick Gilkey, Ricardo Caceda, and Clinton Kilts. In their article, “When Emotional Reasoning Trumps IQ” (Harvard Business Review, September 2010 edition), they found that the best strategic thinkers showed “significantly less neural activity in the prefrontal cortex [rational functional area of brain] than in the areas associated with ‘gut’ responses, empathy, and emotional intelligence.”

Since we are often experiencing these emotions on an unconscious level, we could feel completely rational. Consequently, all our decisions are emotional ones. We just might not believe it.

 

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Categories: Analogies, Career, Cognition, Conscious, Decision Making, Emotional Intelligence, Emotions, Empathy, Influence, Intuition, Intuition Fundamentals, Logic, Methodologies, Motivation, Performance, Processes, Rationalizing, Reason, Technological Advancements, Technology, Thinking, Unconscious
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Placebo Management (Pt 5): Emotions, Health, Performance

By Mike Lehr

This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series Placebo Management

Placebo ManagementHow we feel about ourselves affects us. It influences our health and decisions. Now, as reported in the article, “Think Yourself Well” (The Economist, December 8, 2012 edition), Barbara Fredrickson and Bethany Kok of the University of North Carolina may have found physiological connection between good emotions and good health.

This tangible connection reinforces the importance of managing to impact employees’ emotions. If positive emotions directly correlate to good health, imagine their power on employee performance. Tangibly, this means fewer illnesses. Intangibly, there is still value if our approach influences how employees feel . . . especially about themselves.

Consequently, what we say is important as well as how we say it when influencing employees’ emotions. Compliments and intrinsic rewards are important here; criticism, discipline, incentives and corrective actions do extremely little to influence positive feelings. We not only need to have the right expectations from such techniques but the right understanding of their uses.

Additionally, helping employees develop strong relationships with others or simply reminding them of the good relationships they do have can influence positives feelings. Talking about the good relationships we have makes us happier.

Asking employees to help us also encourages positive emotions related to helpfulness and altruism. Most people feel better about themselves when they help others. Their help helps them see their value.

Simply managing using negative reinforcements will tend to yield an underperforming, sicker workforce over the long term. So, the question is this: what are we doing now to affect the emotional well-being of our workforce?

 

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Categories: Approaches, Arbitrariness, Communication, Compliment, Emotions, Employees, Expectations, Feelings, Influence, Interpretation, Intuition, Leadership, Management, Management Techniques, Nonfinancial Rewards, Performance, Phraseology, Placebo Management (Series), Relationship Building, Series, Techniques, Unconscious, Words
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Creative Innovation (Pt 15): Prototypes as Obstacles

By Mike Lehr

This entry is part 15 of 15 in the series Creative Innovation

Creative Bulb“Once he gets an idea in his head, there’s no changing it!” As common as this comment is, it’s true for us all to some degree. It’s formally called anchoring. Such ideas can alter our thinking and feeling processes and undermine our creative efforts. In fact, anchoring is so strong that it can influence our decisions even if we know the information is wrong.

Words alone are often anchors (money vs. time; thinking vs. feeling) and set moods. When they form ideas, they are even more powerful. Now, according to Paul Leonardi’s article, “Early Prototypes Can Hurt a Team’s Creativity” (Harvard Business Review, December 2011 edition), prototypes can serve as anchors too:

. . . when people see a detailed prototype, something odd happens: They concentrate on the prototype’s form and function, forgetting to attend to any remaining ambiguities about the problem the product is meant to solve or the obstacles in the way. Instead of clarifying the path ahead, the prototype puts a halt to useful brainstorming.

Now, often we delude ourselves by exploring other options, but we sabotage them by emphasizing evidence and arguments that support the initial idea and discounting those that don’t. In short, we formulate a rationale making the initial idea best.

We can observe the effects of anchoring in our everyday conversations. The person who first expresses himself often sets the direction of the conversation because conversations often build from the most recent comments. Focus groups have to guard against alphas, people who dominate conversations, or their findings become skewed.

The physicality of prototypes (also diagrams, blueprints, plans, etc.) can do more damage to the creative process than discussed ideas. So, the next time you see or think something, ask, “Is this preventing us from seeing other options or revisiting the problem?”

 

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Categories: Business Strategies, Change, Cognition, Creative Innovation (Series), Creativity, Decision Making, Emotions, Feelings, Influence, Innovation, Intuition, Problem Solving, Processes, Rationalizing, Series, Thinking, Unconscious, Word Choice, Word Power, Words
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Assessing Creative Problem Solving: Outlier Technique

By Mike Lehr

Identifying creativity isn’t easy, but it is possible and can be done without assessment tools. It begins with identifying outlying answers to our questions. There are differences between people who give standard answers and creative ones, and differences between people who can solve problems and people who are problem solvers.

In other words, when we ask people questions, we should to anticipate their answers. The more different they are from the ones we expect the more creative they might be. Of course, different is necessarily creative. For example, someone gives a different answer to a question, but when we ask, “How did you come to do that?” and they answer along the lines of, “Well, some friends suggested I do that,” the act might be different to us but was not creative to the person.

This technique is similar to polling, meaning we need several questions on divergent topics to use it well. We also need to adjust for cultural and environmental differences. For example, people might give us different answers because their culture is different from ours and we have little experience with theirs. Thus, while their answers might be different from what we expect, our expectations might be too narrow.

On the other hand, their answers can’t be unconnected to our question. For example, if we ask, “How do you normally get to work?” and they answer, “Breakfast,” while it’s different, there isn’t a connection, and we’ll need to ask for one.

Nevertheless, in the end, the more different we find people’s answers are from our expectations and from what we could expect from their situations, the greater their creative potential is. That brings up another point: most people don’t realize how creative they are so they haven’t developed it.

 

Related article: Test Your Creativity: 5 Classic Creative Challenges

 

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