Intuition is an important resource for future's companies. But it is nonsense to focus on intuition as an inidividual competence only. To succeed it is necessary to evolve your company, too. This White-Paper offers you some important principles to benefit from your and your employees intuition.

1. Professional Intuition
How to improve intuition in the context of organizations
DR. ANDREAS ZEUCH
cell +49.(0)160.79 38 807 | email: az@a-zeuch.de | web: www.a-zeuch.de |
integral.blog: www.psychophysik.com/integral-blog | podcast: www.dasabenteuerleben.de

2. Overview
‣ Basics: Professional Intuition
‣ Improving Intuition is no luxury
‣ Improving Intuition
‣ Individuals
‣ Organizations
‣ Bad News
‣ Good News
‣ Needing support?
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

3. Basics: Professional Intuition
‣ Intuition is needed in all daily decisions. In the small
ones as well as in the „big“ strategic ones (have a look
at my paper „Essences of Decision Making“)
‣ Everybody is intuitive. Intuition is a basic human
function (because of its rooting in subliminal
perception and information processing and know-how)
‣ Intuitive decisions may be more effective and efficient
than such by rationality – especially in the context of
complexity.
‣ Intuition can lead to misjugdements because old
experiences may distort the perception of actual
situations. Expertise can become a routine-trap.
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

4. Improving Intuition is no luxury
‣ Because of these basics it is no luxury to improve the
professional intuition in your company.
‣ We experience a crisis of decision-making. We all have
to learn to deal with complexity and thererfore with
daily uncertainty. Intuition is the natural given
resource to navigate in the fog of uncertainty.
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

5. Improving Intuition: Individuals
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

6. Improving Intuition: Individuals (1)
‣ Attitudes and beliefs
‣ Identify your own attitudes and beliefs on professional intuition and
those of your employees and leaders. Work on limiting attitudes
and beliefs such as „Intuition is a genetic disposition“.
‣ Demystify Intuition. It‘s no magic phenomenon, it can be explained
by serious scientific models.
‣ Develop trust in the deeper self and unconscious.
‣ Intuitive experiences until today
‣ Activate the memory of succesful intuitions. Make them a point of
reference.
‣ Explore the unsuccesful intuitions. What were the reasons?
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

7. Improving Intuition: Individuals (2)
‣ Improving perception
‣ „Inner-World-Perception“ - everything which happens inside
yourself: Feelings, emotions, body sensations, thoughts, inner
images and maybe your inner voice.
‣ „Outer-World-Perception“ - everything which happens beyond
your skin: All you can see, hear, feal, taste and smell in your
surrounding.
‣ Exercising intuitive decision-making
‣ A great way to develop intuitive decision-making is improvisational
theatre:
‣ The trainees have to act very spontaneous without thinking, planning
and controlling.
‣ They will get immediate feedback on the quality of their decision-
making
‣ And: It‘s terrific fun!
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

8. Improving Intuition: Individuals (3)
‣ Handling Intuition
‣ The most important lesson to learn: Just perceive your intuition
without judging in any direction!
‣ Learn to verify your intuition if possible (which means: if there is
enough time...). Talk with colleagues, employees, customers or
B2B-partners about your intuitive insights. Intuition is no
reflectory instinct you have to follow automatically.
‣ Learn to communicate your intuition to intuition-sceptics. There
are several possibilities of effective communication.
‣ Concrete techniques
‣ Learn and develop concrete techniques of intuitive problem-
solving
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

9. Improving Intuition: Organizations
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

10. Improving Intuition: Organizational Culture (1)
Develop what I call a „Constructive Culture of
Nichtwissen“ (=„Not-Knowing“, Ignorance ...)
‣ There is no complete information
‣ Stop the belief in complete information and the superiority of
rationality
‣ Epistemic Arrogance
‣ is the overestimation of knowledge and the underestimation of
uncertainty (a great term from Taleb‘s „Black Swan“ - read it!)
‣ Transform this dysfunctional mind-set in a more critical and
modest one
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

11. Improving Intuition: Organizational Culture (2)
‣ Legitimation of decisions
‣ Not every decision can be justified. Stop the claim for legitimating
every decision because otherwise it will kill intuition from the very
first moment
‣ Error culture
‣ Without errors there would‘nt have been evolution. Without errors
we would`nt have Penicillin or Post-Its!
‣ Develop an intelligent culture of errors. Errors happen, they are
not made. Otherwise it would be sabotage (and you would have
some other problems...)
‣ Tolerance of uncertainty
‣ Since you and your employees have to face uncertainty more and
more the conclusion is to develop a tolerance of uncertainty.
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

12. Improving Intuition: Organizational Structure
‣ Cell-Structure-Design
‣ If your organization is structured in the classical way of hierarchy,
centralization, command-and-control ... you should transform it
into a cell-structure-design. Create an
‣ Adaptive decision culture, which is based on two pillars
‣ Self-Organization (Empowerment, self-determined work...)
‣ Possibility Spaces (to benefit from errors, chances and Nichtwissen)
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

13. Bad and good news
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

14. Bad News
‣ This is no homerun.
‣ It will take effort, time and money.
‣ It‘s a fundamental transition of beliefs and mind-sets.
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

15. Good News
‣ There are companies and organizations who did it.
‣ The results will be a good return on invest.
‣ The only limitations are the mind-sets.
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009

16. Needing support?
http://www.a-zeuch.de/index.php?l=en
© ANDREAS ZEUCH 2009