Mike Lehr's Blog

As we saw with an earlier post, intuition arrives first when we make decisions. But, how does this happen? How does intuition become involved in our response to an event?

Consider for a moment a restaurant’s ambiance. Objectively, it has nothing to do with the food; however, if it’s unclean, disorderly and ugly we will tend to feel there is also something wrong with the food. Why do children ask their moms and dads, “Are you in a good mood?” They know their parents’ emotional state will affect their decision-making.

Figure 1 illustrates what’s happening. For any event, there are conscious (solid lines) and unconscious aspects (transparent lines). Our cognition cannot capture consciously all an event has to offer.    Analogously, ponder light: some of it we can see some we can’t (such as heat, infrared, ultraviolet and radiation). Still, even if we can’t see unseen light, it affects us. The same holds true for events. Even if we can’t consciously grasp the unconscious aspects; they slip through our conscious defenses and affect us.

Figure 2 demonstrates how this happens. The unconscious aspects impact our emotions which triggers our intuition. Our intuition produces more complex emotions that impact our cognition, our thinking processes. These emotions will select the rationale that best express our wants, desires and needs. These are a function of our personalities and give insights into who we are (red lines).

Returning to our restaurant analogy, the negative feelings produced by the ugly ambiance trigger negative emotions. These in turn encourage us to select a rationale that might have us translate the ugliness into unsanitary. Therefore, we’ll rationalize that the food is unsafe and not good. Conversely, if the ambiance produces good feelings, we will tend to like the food more.

Virtually all of our decisions are emotionally based. Therefore, as we saw in my previous posting, Decisions: Roles of Intuition and Cognition, intuition (link) plays a vital role in decision making. We often notice this as our confusion about the reasons people give for their decisions. This is because if don’t have a grasp on the emotions causing people on a subconscious level to gravitate to a rationale justifying what they want.

Since the business world often demands we have a rational orientation, we faulty believe that people make decisions about their actions as shown in the left-hand figure below.  If they find Rationale #1 as having the best set of reasons, evidence and logic, then people will select the recommended action associated with it, Action #1. If Rationale #3 is the best, then they select Action #3.

Shopping Rationales: Cognitive vs Intuitive Decisions

However, the right-hand figure shows that intuition, based upon people’s wants and desires, will actually determine the action then the corresponding rationale to support it. So, if people prefer Action #2, they will tend to select Rationale #2 because it justifies their decision. However, as the above embedded posting suggests, this shopping for a rationale will likely occur subliminally. This means that on a conscious, cognitive level, people will tend to believe they are making a rational decision even though they are not.

What does this mean in practical terms? First, good insight into the decision maker’s personality will enhance our abilities to predict his decisions even if we don’t have complete knowledge of the problem. Second, any of his decisions, even if they aren’t similar to the problem, will further our insights into his personality. Taking such an intuitive approach works because personality will always be more consistent than rationales.

While helping a non-profit, a board member said, “We can only deal with a problem if we know there is one.” Here the state knowledge assumes alters our perspective. In this case, it causes us to ignore the idea of prevention, dealing with problems before they arise. In reality, problems don’t care whether we know or prove they exist. Thus, if knowledge’s form can alter our perspective and prevent us from seeing potential solutions, it is important to have a grasp on the different states of knowledge.

To that end, I’ve created the map to the right. It has five basic states: Unknown, Aware, Know, Prove and Quantify. Each is a subset of the previous one:

Knowledge Map

• Unknown: Not knowing what we don’t know
• Aware: Knowing what we don’t know, or not being able to express what we do know
• Know: Knowing without proof but being able to express what we know
• Prove: Using approaches that adhere closely to the scientific method or the one used in courts of law.
• Quantify: Being able to count, calculate or formulate.

By looking at knowledge’s states in this manner, we see how much reality we exclude if we only accept what is quantifiable and provable. Imagine in warfare or the game of poker if we took no action unless we could prove it was the right one. Business is not immune to this. Therefore, success is more determined by how we treat what we don’t know or barely know and not by how we treat what we can prove and quantify. Thus, if we lived by the advice of the board member above, we would surely fail without a great amount of fortune.

The scientific method’s usefulness falls far short of people’s belief in it. In other words, hype exceeds reality, and it becomes a panacea for solving problems of any type. The emotions behind this belief are so strong that people are often willing to deny, ignore or discount a reality if they cannot “prove” it. Since emotions and relationships often fall in this unproven domain and play important roles in many events, this belief can retard innovation and problem solving where intuitive approaches are viable solutions.

The inherent weaknesses of the scientific method are produced by its strengths as a disciplined inquiry. In its rigid quest to define observations and hypotheses, to control the experimental process, to quantify results and to present conclusions in a manner that can repeat results with different experimenters; the method excludes aspects of reality that aren’t easily observed, defined, controlled, quantified, presented or repeated. For example, something as obvious as good leadership being good for business cannot be addressed by the scientific method. The same holds true for proving that a good sales person sells more than a bad one or that good morale is better for business than bad morale is.

The proof of the scientific method’s inherent weaknesses is the common observation that what works in the laboratory doesn’t necessarily work in reality. That is why the idea must be reintroduced to reality via developmental and engineering phases. This is reflected in everyday life through disclaimers on product guarantees. For example, a window might be guaranteed but only if the homeowner uses the installer recommended by the window manufacturer. In other words, the best window in the laboratory might not be the best in reality because it’s too difficult to install.

Intuition’s most practical advantage to problem solving is the enhanced sphere of good solutions it offers. Generally, this sphere will produce five types of benefits. They will appear as solutions that can:

1. Address seemingly intractable problems
2. Save a tremendous amount of money
3. Reduce work and headaches to employ
4. Reach higher levels of effectiveness
5. Make objective- or scientific-based solutions better

Let’s look at some examples.

We can solve many customer service problems without necessarily solving them directly; we do it by listening, sympathizing and encouraging venting. We can save a tremendous amount of money on moral building efforts; we do it by employing our personal power to remember names, shake hands and extend “thank you’s” which don’t cost a cent. We can reduce the work and headaches involved in disciplinary efforts; we do it through the power of asking and of positive reinforcements. We can reach higher levels of effectiveness in change initiatives; we do it by organizing those emotionally adapt at change and by using compliments to encourage them. Any software rollout becomes better; we do it by selling the effort rather than commanding. Any training becomes better; we do it by influencing expectations beforehand and not just focusing on content and delivery during.

All these solutions employ emotional elements. Listening, sympathizing and venting encourage customers to feel better about a problem. Our personal power encourages employees to feel better about us at no cost. Asking and reinforcing encourages people to feel better about changing their behavior. Uniting emotionally similar people and complimenting them encourages them to feel better about change. Shaping how people feel about software and training encourages them to adopt the new practices.

In short, changing how people feel opens a vast, new sphere of solutions to the problems we face.

The important practical implication of intuition and emotions in decision making is this: if we don’t grasp the underlying emotions and how intuition is driving a decision, then we really don’t understand the decision. That means we expose ourselves unnecessarily to error.

Said another way, no matter how logical or reasonable a decision might seem its tap root is still emotional. Any appearance of logic or reason is purely cosmetic. Looked upon another way, the rationale becomes the “excuse” justifying a basically emotional decision.

This even extends to the scientific method and statistical analysis. You don’t need either to arrive at a good decision. They are rationales allowing the expression of certain emotions, many rooted in the need to feel secure about a decision. Therefore, a person’s intuition will encourage the selection of science and statistics to satisfy security needs.

In everyday life, we will tend to observe the implications of intuition and emotions in decision making when we present a rationale that trumps the one being presented and the decision does not change. We will also tend to observe extremely contorted rationales simply to justify a decision. This is the origination of the derisive expression, “You’re just rationalizing your decision.”

As an example, take a sales situation. If we base our sales presentation on what appears to be the inherent logic of that person’s objections rather than the intuition and emotions driving them, we failure is quite possible: we address the logic but gain no decision to move forward. In the end, we might even conclude that the person is simply being unreasonable. However, we are projecting; it’s unreasonable to expect reason to prevail in decision-making rooted in emotions.

Roles of Intuition and Cognition in Decision Making

In terms of the decision-making process, intuition occurs before cognition. The important practical implication of this process is this: if we don’t grasp the underlying emotions and how intuition is driving a decision or action, then we really don’t understand it. Thus, behind every single decision or action, there will be an emotion or a collection of emotions driving it.

An excellent illustrator of the connection between intuition and cognition is radar. Let the appearance of something on radar represent intuition and the actual sighting of it be cognition. The key implication of this metaphor is that intuition comes before cognition in our entire decision-making process. The movement of something from radar to an actual sighting represents the movement of feelings into thoughts and finally into decisions and actions.

The diagram to the right expresses this relationship. Moving from left to right, intuition processes our emotions which are typically a collection of feelings. Our emotions create our desires, wants and needs. Through these intuition gives our cognition direction. This direction allows cognition to create thoughts. Using techniques such as reason and logic, through cognition a collection of thoughts coalesce into a rationale. These rationales form the expressible, concrete foundation of our decisions and actions.

In short, this decision-making process transforms our vague, generalized emotions into concrete decisions and actions. An excellent metaphor is the igniting of gasoline. Without the concrete form of an engine and car, this event is a potentially harmful explosion. With that form, the event becomes a transformative tool in our lives. Similarly, without the techniques and tools to express ourselves, our emotions lack a practicality that will allow us to enhance our lives. In some cases, they might even harm ourselves and others.

Cognition is the refining of knowledge and the justifying of decisions through rationales. Rationales are thoughts linked by such techniques as reason and logic. They impact how we view things, both tangible and intangible. Cognition gives us a way to express ourselves, to express our desires, wants and needs.

Cognition is a process occurring primarily on a conscious level. “Refining” and “justifying” indicate that process. Since the formulation of thoughts occurs primarily in our conscious, cognition gives form to what our intuition creates. This form allows us to change our world in accordance with our desires, wants and needs.

Cognition is the refiner of virtually every decision we make, because almost everything we think, do or say needs some sort of refinement to give it focus and specificity before it can effectively impact our world. In this way, cognition crystallizes into a goal, objective or some other tangible form the direction that our intuition gives us. It’s similar to the way an agenda, a score or a script gives form to a meeting, a song or a play in accordance with the tone we want for them.

As an example of what cognition is, consider a message that seeks to influence people. It will contain a rationale using reason and logic to demonstrate the positive benefits of adopting the message. However, if the rationale is not understandable it will appear as unreasonable, illogical, incomplete or indecipherable. As a result, the message will have difficulty influencing people. Witness what happens to a computer when the coding does not follow the language or logic of a certain protocol. The same thing happens with people when confronted by rationales they do not understand. That is cognition at work.

Intuition is the acquiring of knowledge and the making of decisions through emotions. Emotions are feelings that go beyond our senses of touching, smelling, seeing, hearing and tasting. They indicate how we feel about intangibles such as concepts and personalities. For instance, if we like something, that is our emotions giving us knowledge.

Intuition is a process occurring primarily on a subconscious level. “Acquiring” and “making” indicate that process. Since all emotions begin in our subconscious and can often reside there forever without our conscious knowledge, intuition works in the subconscious to process what our emotions generate.

Intuition is the originator of virtually every decision we make, because everything we think, do or say begins on a subconscious level. In this way, intuition is the compass for our conscious similar to the way an introduction sets the tone for a meeting, a song or a play. Intuition is the deliverer of the raw ingredients for our decisions which our conscious refines and manifests so we can live in our world.

As an example of what intuition is, consider a messenger and the message. We can change how people interpret the message by changing the content of the message. However, we can also change how they interpret the message by changing the messenger. Witness the counter effect a repetitive commercial has when suddenly its celebrity messenger falls from grace. People’s interpretations change even though the message does not. That is intuition at work.