Insights such as those of Fushek and Schachter-Shalomi are the product of intuition—a nonrational (but not irrational) way of knowing. Because intuition is nonrational it is difficult to describe in the rational language of formal definitions; one must intuit any understanding of intuition. Webster’s Dictionary defines intuition as the immediate knowing or learning of something without the conscious use of reasoning. This definition is somewhat unsatisfying because it tells us only what intuition is without, not what intuition is with.
Intuition can be thought of as a perception from within that integrates sensory data, thoughts, feelings, and unconscious information into a single object of awareness. It is the source of hunches, inspiration, creativity, gut-feelings, and surprising possibilities, and is sometimes described as the ability to see around corners. It also often comes with a compelling impulse that something is obviously the right thing to do, and so insight might give new direction to a life, and then, through a leader’s efforts, to an institution, or to a society.
Some people trust intuition more than others do, and because they trust it, it develops more highly in them. Robert Sternberg, Professor of Psychology and Education at Yale University and a foremost expert on intelligence, wrote, ‘‘Successfully intelligent people recognize the limits of their rationality and are also aware of the traps into which they can fall in their thinking.’’ Such people utilize both intuition and reason when making decisions and forming solutions to problems. Joseph Chilton Pearce, a renowned expert on intelligence, creativity, and learning, says that human intuition begins to fade at about age seven if it is not purposefully developed. He wrote, ‘‘Without this intuition, we develop an intellect compulsively trying to compensate by engineering our environment and each other.’’ We thus behave as if we were living in a world we cannot trust rather than one in which our intuitive powers would naturally keep our environment fine-tuned to support our own well-being.
Pearce believes that the predominance of rationality over intuition has a steep price: We have become alienated from our ability to thrive in a system—our universe—that is infinitely open and creative. In other words, human development is not keeping pace with our awareness of the complexity of our world. Using the term reptilian to describe primitive brain function, Pearce says, ‘‘In this alienated state we develop intellect as an ally with the physical sensory system and its primitive defense postures, producing brilliant thought in reptilian personalities. And the more brilliant the human reptile, the more precarious our situation.’’ In such an alienated posture, intuition can be seen as highly suspect, rather than as a natural form of intelligence designed to help us respond to the world according to our own well-being.
But intuition is a primary tool of leadership, and leaders, like other artists, must not be afraid of their tools. Leaders who operate in incredibly complex environments cannot engineer success, and therefore cannot rely solely on intellect. They must trust the world in which they operate, and they must trust their intuition. In organizations that worship intellect and that require change, the more successful leaders will be those who can rise beyond intellect and employ a fusion of rationality and intuition.
Bill Strickland sees that leaders, and especially entrepreneurs, routinely rely on their intuition. ‘‘The act of taking a piece of clay that has no shape and forming it into a vessel is a pretty dramatic process,’’ he said. ‘‘A lot of it relies on a kind of intuitive understanding of the material and a visual understanding of what is possible. I think leadership, when it is done right, is a combination of that because you are really looking at a potential problem and seeing an opportunity. Often times in ways that other people can’t identify.’’
Strickland uses Howard Schultz, the guiding force of the Starbucks coffee empire, as an example of a person with intuitive understanding. Strickland said, ‘‘Howard Schultz comes along 100 years after Maxwell House coffee and says, ‘I can create high-end venues where people will pay three times the price for the coffee and line up to do it.’ How he saw that and nobody else saw that since Maxwell House is pretty amazing.’’
For leaders, the ‘‘intuitive understanding of the material’’ that Strickland refers to means appreciating the powerful yet inscrutable natures of their own artistic media—story, feeling, and soul. They are the leader’s clay, the raw stuff out of which commitment is formed.