Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink,” begins with the memorable story of art experts asked to determine whether a magnificent example of a kouros, a sculpture of a striding boy, was genuine. Several of the experts had a strong visceral reaction in their gut. They believed it was a fake. But they were not able to say what it was that made them uneasy.
Their decision was a classic case of intuition. The experts knew it was a fake but didn’t know how they knew that. Those who drew their conclusions from the book early on might have come away with an almost magical view of intuition. That would be a wrong conclusion for later in the book Gladwell reveals that he does not hold that position. So how did the experts recognize it was a fake?
Not magic
Expert intuition actually involves both fast, intuitive thinking and slow, deliberative, more logical thinking. In that first phase, a plan or tentative decision comes to mind automatically. In the second phase, the plan or tentative decision is simulated to check if it will work. Herb Simon won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in decision-making. He concluded that intuition is a form of pattern recognition. He described intuition this way: The situation has provided a cue; this cue has given the expert access to information stored in memory, and the information provides the answer. Intuition is nothing less than recognition. And by the way, sometimes this all happens in less than 60 seconds.
Assessing magic
As Daniel Kahneman writes in Thinking Fast and Slow, we’ve inherited some types of memory from our ancestors. Specifically, we “know” when to be afraid. And we tense up when we come into those situations. But what does it take to acquire expert intuition?
There are all kinds of business consultants, coaches and “experts” on the web, writing blogs and commenting. What can be galling is their sense of confidence. Confidence is the consequence of two related impressions: cognitive ease and coherence. We are liable to be confident when the story we tell ourselves—and others—comes to mind easily, with no contradiction and no competing scenario. But remember this: the ease with which a person proposes solutions and the fact that the solution makes sense does not guarantee that the proposal is true. The problem with ease and coherence is often that “what you see is all there is (WYSIATI).” That’s a formula for error and sometimes disaster.
Instead, the questions that need to be in the front our lobes regarding expertise are two: what am I missing (see my post of August 14, 2022), and what don’t I know? Much of the time it’s very important not to trust anyone’s judgment, and that includes yourself. I often rely on my inherent insecurity regarding important decisions. I may lean on my insecurity for ten minutes or less—and on other occasions, several weeks, giving me time to do a lot of research. Fears of making the wrong decision along with a dose of skepticism can go a long way toward making effective decisions.
Evaluating the “intuition” of others
So, when you have need for expertise, whether internally or from a consultancy, how do you go about evaluating the expertise of a person? The answer comes out of skill learning and the processes of deliberate practice:
--When the environment in which a person has worked is regular enough to be predictable.
--When the person has had an opportunity to learn these regularities through prolonged, deliberate practice.
Don’t get sucked into the notion of experience. What you want to know is the kind of experience the person has had and whether it’s “regular.” Some people may have years of working with a situation, but still be in their first year of learning. Furthermore, some environments and work situations are profoundly irregular and the tasks in which the person has been involved rarely have a simple solution. I’d be very skeptical of “experts” from those situations.
Years ago, I had a very bright, young client who had just finished his MBA and had been hired out of the university to become the COO of an architectural firm. Though he had a lot of experience from high school as a building contractor with his father’s firm, he had no experience working with an architectural firm. The ways of architectural tasks, working and objectives differed significantly from his background. And my client didn’t trust his own insights. So early on, when he had a serious problem requiring a major decision, he sometimes went in to the CEO, a major shareholder and architect, to discuss the issue. But the CEO often commented to him to just “go with your gut.” So, in one of our early sessions, he commented to me that he couldn’t go with his gut, because there was nothing there. He had no previous experience of the problem in regular situations where there was significant predictability to rely on. In other words, intuition regarding a given kind of situation always develops long-term as a distinct pattern.
He was the first person I’d ever heard reject his supposed intuition in my first 15 years of consulting. He understood clearly that intuition is not a magical ability that a person can develop without relevant experience. And he was smart enough to recognize he couldn’t trust his gut.
How did he resolve his issue? I gave him the names of several people in the firm with a lot of trusted experience whom he could believe. He followed through on the recommendation and built a fine reputation over time.
What his response does for us is to reinforce the understanding of intuition as knowledge built on regular experiences, patterns that have become predictable over time.
FYI for consultants: Clients pay a lot of attention to consultants who reject conventional wisdom and tell the truth when asked to take on a project in which they lack expertise. Like that COO client, I’ve worked on projects on which I did not have the expertise. After my first few years of consulting naiveté, I was very upfront about that lack. Sometimes I rejected a project. On other occasions, I said to the potential client, “Look, I’ve had no experience that I trust in taking on this project. I think I can do it, but I’m not certain. But I’m not willing to commit to it without a lot of support from you. And I don’t know what I don’t know about this project.” It’s difficult to say that when you’re a free-lance consultant and need the income. Most just take on the project. Thankfully, I always had plenty of business and felt free to reject a project for which I felt inadequate.
But the majority of clients went ahead, asking me to work on a project in spite of my concerns and rejection. They said they wanted “my brainpower.” One of them consistently asked whether I thought there was a 60% chance of success. I was usually able to say yes to that—and that was all he wanted. Some of these projects were completed partially. Some were fully successful. And I withdrew from a couple when I decided either it wasn’t going to work or I couldn’t bring it off. In all of those instances I was paid handsomely and kept my reputation.
I’m unaware of other free-lancers advocating such an approach, but honesty, integrity and your reputation ride on such relationships. Over the years, I asked several consultants about that problem and only got a satisfactory answer from one free-lancer. That kind of honesty always pays off, even if you don’t get the job as a result of your openness.
Be aware that business is light years behind medicine at this point in time. We business people are at the place today where medicine was in the 1950s. My physicians, for example, will inevitably tell me whether or not a prescription or a change in behavior is going to work. A few years ago, I asked a surgeon about some minor surgery. His response was telling. He said there was a good possibility that it would “solve my problem, but there are no guarantees.” It was a success.
In sum, it’s not easy to assess expertise from either an insider or an outsider. Insiders have a track record and a number of trusted recommendations can be surfaced. But outsiders are a different animal so you want to be cautious and skeptical.