Intuition is gaining new respect lately as a business Smart-Skill. It turns out that too much knowledge can often be an impediment to innovation. And with computers outperforming human brains, it’s turning out that we can create a lot of value by mining some of our subtler skills, like intuition.

Recently French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin put forward a new theory on how the great pyramid may have been constructed from the inside out, which credibly challenged both major existing theories. He developed his theory after following a flash of intuition that his father, also an engineer, had received.

The use of intuition as a business tool has been undervalued in the past because of it’s intractability. Linkages between intuitive insight and their outcomes have been ambiguous and hard to trace. Yet, evidence continues to accumulate where intuition has played an important role in the development of new products, discoveries, and inventions, extending sales and customer relationships. Business moguls like Oprah, Donald Trump and many CEO’s, cite good intuition as a major factor in their success.

Studies done 20 years ago by academic Weston Agor on CEO’s to see whether they relied on intuition in making business decisions. It turned out that 80% of them relied on intuition before making an important decision, but they all thought the other CEO’s didn’t. Other studies done by then Harvard Business Review editor, Daniel Isenberg, found that if a decision involved high stakes or was complex, intuition was the preferred used to unravel the problem.

Todays CEO’s, hemmed in by board approvals and complex reporting processes, don’t usually make the kinds of decisions they did 20 years ago. Instead, a variety of analysts and senior staff at various levels of their organizations do. Intuition, although important, is something they feel less equipped to carry out because their rational skills have become so pronounced. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, tend to have a large and immediate responsibility for taking these decisions.

As a result, organizations, business people and entrepreneurs have begun to take intuition more seriously in the realm of the real. Here’s why.

Intuition is economical. Generating results doesn’t require or bind a lot of capital or time. It frees our imagination and fits our sustainability models by enabling us to source from a wider set of variables than analysis. It generates outcomes far beyond it’s investment, often yielding results that disproportionately large by comparison. Also it links to the things we find increasingly important these days - meaning, wisdom and creativity. Doesn’t it make sense then, that it is a skill well worth our attention and investment to better cultivate?

That’s where the power of ting! comes in. A ting! is a word that describes the “sound” of intuition striking a receptive mind. As in, “I just got a ting!” A ting! could be a flash of wisdom, a gut sensation, a familiar excitement, a vision or dream cue, a sudden dawning realization, a physical cue like butterflies, heat or other sensation that could serve as a warning or a “go ahead” signal.

The power of ting! and how the starter steps for developing it are revealed in my book ting! - A Surprising Way to Listen to Intuition & Do Business Better which is actually makes a good business case for intuition. Written as a business parable ting! shows what happens when an average person starts to pay attention and explore what intuition is saying and surprising results occur - traceable from intuitive insight to a business result. Ting! also serves as a training tool with key lessons embodied in each chapter. If the payoff is better business results and innovation, then ting! is the doorbell.

The first step in the learning process to “Say Yes! to your intuition”. When you do this you actually set off a series of perceptual events telling your brain, the thinking computer, to allow you to receive the intuitive perceptions that it is routinely screening out.

One of my clients, a company president, who participated in a more structured intuition coaching process was having problems a major supplier who had threatened to exit a large contact, the result of which would cause severe business losses and likely a long, expensive litigious journey. During an intuitive process centred around this issued, my client suddenly witnessed a fox crouched behind a rock who lunged at her with teeth bared. The experience seemed so real that she backed up in her chair about a foot. Her immediate reaction was…. “Oh my god, they’re going to ambush me!”

She also realized immediately that she wasn’t going to be able to handle this with the directness and openness that were typical of her communication style. So instead she began to carefully communicate with the client from a position of this different tactical style, which required her to not to over-reveal certain details.

Fast forward six months -- the result was that the client did eventually terminate the agreement but they did so in a way where neither they nor my clients’ company lost money and they avoided a potentially costly $200,000 litigation process. The best part? The client actually said that because of the communications process the relationship was preserved to the event that they would have no hesitation in doing business together in the future.

Back on the ground, intuition is a far more common and everyday experience than you realize. Visualizing someone and then getting a phone call or email from them is one example. Or getting a “soft” feeling when you’re about to consider a joint venture that perhaps doesn’t “feel solid” can lead you to asking more definitive questions, so that you can decide whether you want to pursue the project or not.

Intuition causes us to pay more attention to feelings and a larger space of peripheral intelligence that is more knowledgeable than we are by simply referring to facts. This is it’s challenge and advantage. The challenge is often the interplay between our true perception of intuition and an argument from the critical mind who simply doesn’t want to believe in the verity of the perception. In this case, the mind can often be wrong. Most people will easily recall times when they didn’t listen to their intuition, at their peril. When things feel right they generally are, when they don’t they’re usually accompanied with all sorts of delays, complications or mixed expectations.

It’s training the intuition senses that can make all the difference here. Getting the signals more clearly opens the door for you to have a more fluid and less stressful business day.

Here are some of worthy questions you can ask to create value for intuition in your business.
• What would I/my business look like if I/it was more intuitive?
• What outcomes would I/we like to use my/our intuition Smart-Skills for?
• What are the best places in my business where more intuition could be beneficial?
• How can these processes be adjusted to foster intuition?
• Who are the people that should be trained to use Intuition Smart-Skills?
• What performance expectations should be developed to support this?

Here are some of the ways to realize intuition as a sustainable business advantage.
1. Recognize intuition as a Smart-Skill which can be developed.
2. Shift from validating intuition to developing your Intuitive Capability.
3. Cultivate room for a more intuitive business culture and real stories from your business that link intuition to results.
4. Build a healthy business ecology that encourages “whole” people to be
5. Increase your Innovation IQ. Focus on results with less analytical information, more passion, intuition & imagination.
6. Build intuition into your Innovation Strategy.

Where to start? It all starts by boosting your ting! Power. By saying yes! to intuition we open up a lot of doors for greater success and creativity. By learning how intuition occurs for us we gain command of our abilities to recognize it as more than a fleeting experience. Then, once we understand what it’s telling us, we can move on to even greater tings!

Contact:  Arupa Tesolin, 905.271.7272; Cell 905.301.7461, email intuita@intuita.com, www.intuita.com