Can We Trust Our Gut?

When interviewed about a career making big decisions, I recently heard a prominent business leader say, full of pride and confidence:? “I just go with my gut.? It always comes through for me.”

Such a leader may think of themselves as confident and decisive; someone who can size up a situation immediately and make the call, without looking back.? Moving on to the next big thing.

The thing is, our gut is overrated.? Not only that, when we are unaware of the dominance of our gut, we are heading for a fall.

Our never-resting brain is constantly scanning for the familiar, what is normal—sights, smells, thoughts, words, faces, routines—that gives us the impression that all is well.? These things make us feel comfortable in the here and now and this scanning helps to frame our expectations for what is to come.?

Our never-resting brain is also looking for exceptions—things that don’t fit with the familiar.? Then we go to high alert because the different could be a threat to our physical, mental or emotional body.? Or all three.? In one instant we brace ourselves and in another instant, we need to decide whether to resist, freeze or run away.

Yes, we are still primitive.? Primed for survival, just like every other creature.

Our gut serves us well for those matters requiring a reflex response—for genuine survival situations.? The Familiar has plenty to recommend it, as we use it probably hundreds of times a day, mostly in the subconscious.

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky* found that familiarity is a mental shortcut that causes people to favour what is familiar to them over what is new.?

They extrapolated that we cannot trust familiarity because:

• It breeds belief—that repetition is a reliable way to make people believe falsehoods because familiarity is hard to distinguish from truth.? We see this constantly borne out by saturation advertising.
• It’s easy to recall. ?When searching for a lead or an answer and in such circumstances, people will overestimate the importance of the first thing that comes to mind.
• It exploits fast thinking.? Kahneman's work on fast thinking and slow explains how people can automatically and effortlessly make snap judgments, rather than taking time to consider all the possibilities.

So when are we most vulnerable to making a decision based on gut / familiarity??

When the stakes are high and when:

• We are in a good mood.?? We tend to become more intuitive and creative—but also less vigilant and more prone to logical errors.
• We are in the euphoria of a great new idea, and so enamoured with its apparent advantages, we fail to give appropriate weight to the disadvantages.
• We are under scarcity pressure—we consider that there is not enough time or we are at risk of losing money in any given a choice.?
• We feel optimistic.? Because while it shores up resilience and is useful in overcoming setbacks, optimism is probably the most deceptive of the cognitive biases!
• We have the illusion of control and become overconfident.? It’s the most difficult thing to do, but we must slow down and think laterally.?
• When we are fatigued or intoxicated or infatuated.

All of these point to the overwhelming call to be made on our impulse control—which means becoming aware of the need to put aside our ego and accept on each of these occasions, that our first idea is, if not flawed, then certainly inadequate.? We may then modify or even change what would have been that reflex reaction.

Trusting our gut is lazy, egotistical and unbecoming of an authentic leader.

As the key decision-maker, we need to ensure that the best possible outcome is explored—we set up a range of options, asking for trusted external input—and we choose our Options A and B.? We also protect those who are certain to be disadvantaged by our decision.?

In all of this, we cannot trust our gut.

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*Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel prize for economic sciences.? Author of Thinking, Fast and Slow and Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement, he passed away in March this year aged 90.?Tversky died in 1996 aged 59.

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Next week: ?Come to Me

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About the Author

Jeff Bell?is Principal of executive consultancy ResultsWise in Perth, WA.?To boost your leadership, ask Jeff about Band of Leaders Australia (BOLA) [email protected] and his consulting, coaching and strategy facilitation, or his Advanced Leadership Course [email protected] Mobile 0439 988 662.