How To Develop Intuition As A Project Manager
A successful thinker has the courage and know-how to rely on intuition when necessary.
The catch is “when necessary.” While following your gut is a powerful tool, instinct is not foolproof. When selling an idea to a group of people, for example, you may be ineffective if you do not present facts to back it up.
In our fast-moving world, our intuition may be all we have at our disposal when it’s time to decide. Yes, it is better to have ample data and information in front of us. But unfortunately, that’s not always the case.
When you find yourself in a situation that requires you to use inner judgment, you can ask:
- What does my gut tell me?
- Where do I sense the solution will be?
- What feels right about this situation? What feels wrong?
Using your strong feelings as a beacon, you can judge a situation, but try to verify your judgment with facts. Sometimes we go against our instincts in an attempt to make the decision, but that decision actually fails.
This cycle of frustration can be avoided if you learn to trust your instincts, and, at a minimum, examine your feelings to discover their roots.
Often, you may find that what you feel can be traced to an experience.
For every experience you have, there is a resulting lesson.
Through experience, your mind learns lessons that you may not even be aware of, and these lessons — now instincts — will reveal themselves when needed.
The ability to apply your experience — and learn from it — rests on your willingness to listen to your inner voice.
It’s worth pausing and listening when your gut says:
- “I’ve seen this before.”?
- ·"This is not right.”?
- “Something’s telling me to...”
Occasionally, your gut may be wrong. But an even worse scenario is when your inner voice is right, and you brush it aside. By giving your feelings their due consideration, exploring their roots, and verifying your instinct with the available facts, you can put your best foot-and feelings-forward.
? Jennifer Bridges 2017
This is an excerpt from the 25 PDU course “Optimize Your Thinking: Unlock Your Performance Potential.” Check out this course at MyPDUs2Go.com along with many other PDU courses available. Join Us and #NeverStopLearning.
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8 年I fully agree with the article.
IT Project Management Specialist
8 年Philippe V: Based on your comments, it seems that you have some knowledge of epistemology (as do I). The study of knowledge is not a simple thing. Intuition is a part of that. You and I could have a very interesting, extended conversation about this, but it might not be very interesting to most of our group. The original question of this discussion relates to how (or whether) one's intuitive abilities can be improved and how this can be done in a project management environment. I say that, yes, it can be done. We can be trained to be more observant, to develop our logic and reasoning skills, and to become more aware of other people's circumstances and feelings (develop our "EQ"). All of this will almost certainly help improve our intuitive capabilities. And, as we learn more about what actually works for managing projects, this should also help make us more intuitive regarding project management. Would you agree with this?
IT Project Management Specialist
8 年Philippe V: I have to disagree with some of your comment. You said, "If true intuition is pure knowledge, it speaks the truth." First of all, intuition cannot be properly defined as "pure knowledge." There really is no such thing as "pure knowledge." It really should be called "true knowledge." What we call knowledge does not always reflect the truth. Some of what we "know" can actually be false. One needs only to look at the recent progress in science to realize that "what we know" (or actually what we thought we knew) changes on a regular basis. In the definition you cited, "the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference" the critical word is "evident." Just because reasoning is not evident, that does not mean that it isn't there. Reasoning can actually be unconscious rather than conscious. When that happens, we call that "intuition." And that reasoning, whether it be conscious or unconscious, is based on experience.
Coach, supervisor, facilitator, trainer and systems thinker (Ph.D.)
8 年Intuition is neither an instinct, nor a reasoning. Definition by Webster: a : immediate apprehension or cognition; b : knowledge or conviction gained by intuition; c : the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference. Said in other words: intuition is pure knowledge gained by cognition, reasoning comes after intuition. It does not require previous experience (otherwise, it would, by definition, be reasoning). The "inner voice" stated by Kahneman is the (rational) so-called System 1 - automatic and fast reasoning, which is subject to biases. If true intuition is pure knowledge, it speaks the truth. Reasoning, especially system 1, is NOT cognition, it is a treatment of the informations gained by cognition, and that process is very likely to fail.
IT Project Management Specialist
8 年"Intuition" has several different definitions, but probably the most prevalent one is "unconscious reasoning." This is a process where the conclusion of this reasoning process seems immediately obvious to the person, but the actual reasoning involved is not "visible" to the person. While intuition is based on experience, it is also true that some people are much more "intuitive" than some others. Some degree of intuition is present in nearly all humans; people are essentially "born with it." Whether a person's natural intuitive capability can be improved or developed through training is subject to a good deal of controversy.