The power of INTUITION in business

Did you recently experience simultaneous conflictual feelings towards a person or towards a situation? (Often referred to mixed feeling)

Think of your last week, it could have been a tiny situation in a day and yet that situation changed your state of mind for a moment. For example, you had a mixed feeling while and/or after:

• Coming in at work feeling some tention in the air;
• shaking the hand of someone;
• assessing a business deal;
• meeting someone new (a potential new employer, partner, client, employee...);
• discussing some issues or new ideas with a someone or a group;
• reading an e-mail, articles or documentations containing annoucements, a new idea, a new solution, a new issue...;
• participating to a meeting or conference.

Mixed feelings or INTUITION are revealing important information about a situation. I believe that INTUITION is our sixth sense. It can actually be very POWERFUL and USEFUL in business. A survey in 2006 conducted by PR WEEK indicated that 62% of CEO's that rely heavily on gut feeling or intuition. http://www.ehow.com/info_8361792_use-intuition-business-decision.html

Are you listening to your intuition?

Let's do something fun for a minute. take a sheet and a pen. Do two columns, write "INTUITION" on the left colomn and "BLACK OUT" on the right column. The INTUITION column will be for you to write situations where you actually followed your guts. The right one will be situations where you did not follow you gut feeling consciously. Think of good and "bad" decisions you made. Note the year of each situation. Write at least five elements of each column.

What are the outcomes?

So, how did it go? 

• Was it easy for you to identify situations where you had mixed feelings? Are you sensitive to your INTUITION?  
• Is it possible most of your "bad" decisions where made even if you had mixed feelings? (Their is no "bad" decisions - just learning experiences)
• Is it possible that you listen more your INTUITION today vs in the past? In the beggining of your career? 
• In which situations do you find yourself NOT listening to your INTUITION? 

How can you read better your INTUITION?

The only way you can read better your INTUITION is to take time for yourself to see how you really feel about a decision, about someone you just met. If it does NOT make you feel good, you need to digg in why. Don't let others decide or influence you if you are the decidor. Ask for advice but know that you are the one making the decision. If it does not FEEL right, no matter if you need a decision now to happen, it is better to say no and continue to search for solution. 

Often, we are too focused on the timeline of our decision and give up a bit on the quality of the decision. 

Your gut feeling, INTUITION will help you a lot... If you use it.