The concepts of intuition and insight are similar in that they both are unconscious realizations that can guide strategic decision making. However, intuition and insight function differently and this leads to strengths and drawbacks in creating strategic action. Consider this question,

When should I lean on intuition and
when should I lean on insight for guidance in strategy?

This article will help you further refine your application of strategic thinking.

Intuition

Intuition is the ability to understand a situation immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. Intuition comes from well-formed memories and is a type of expertise. Let’s consider an example:

Most of us know executives who have been with their firms for a long time and who understand how the business operates. When it comes to strategy, their style is typically informal and conversational.  Ideas are kicked around, and decisions are made.  These executives are right most of the time, and are typically venerated within the organization for their abilities.  When you ask them how they make their decisions, they unapologetically say that they have a feel or sixth sense for how things could work.

Wrong Applications

It fairly common for people to go to their bosses for an important decision. It’s also common for the boss to rely on intuition. The good news is that intuitive styles are very efficient and workable.

The bad news is that reliance on intuition often allows a person to discount external changes and ambiguities. Intuition to be inappropriate for the situation.

Because intuition is learned knowledge, it shares the same bed with habits. Often the intuition falters when the external situation changes as the habits of status quo hinder framing a new model of organizational performance.

Insight               

Whereas intuition comes from the activation of something you already know, insight is the discovery of new patterns or the reframing of patterns. As Gary Klein describes it, insight is the conversion of a mediocre story to a better story.

In my article, on 3Ms Post Its, I described an “aha moment” by co-inventor Art Fry who slaps his forehead and exclaims, “what we have here is a whole new way to communicate.” Post Its were not simply scrap paper coated with a weak adhesive, but a way to call attention to a document and create focused action (such as indicating where a signature is needed).

The example of Absolute Vodka at home parties in this article is particularly instructive on the nature of insight generation.  I this case, researchers collected data and studied with a trained eye. They looked for patterns and found that alcohol at home parties represents a different kind of social lubricant, not about status and taste but about individuality and humor.

How (and When) to Apply

Those readers familiar with Meyers-Briggs assessment of personality will probably recognize that  intuition and insight generally reflect the “N” intuitive thinking preference and the “S” sensing preference. Sometimes individual preferences become blind spots, so I’d argue that it an agile, flexible style of thinking is most appropriate.

Both insight and intuition use data and result in a conclusion. Generally speaking, insights tend to come more from external data or from use of models whereas intuition leans on personal learning and experiences.

Intuition is more subjective to the individual’s past experiences and training. We might want to consider the breadth of experience that person has. You might ask questions such as these: What is the source of intuition? What experiences are being applied? What parts of the experience are relevant to the current situation?

Insight leans more heavily on objective data. You might ask questions such as these: What is source of the insight?  What data is being applied?

Both intuition and insight are valuable. Intuition comes from experience, and can make for efficient decisions.  The big caveat is to make sure that the experience is relevant to the situation at hand. When you don’t have experience to lean on, you should work on capturing insights.

Thus, we continue to build a case for the importance of self-awareness and metacognition (awareness of your own thinking) as important elements of strategic thinking competency. We need to be on guard for “flow” and effortless management of situations, because strategy often involves things that are just outside of what we’ve chosen to notice.

Do you agree that the distinction between intuition and insight is important?