Strategic decisions: When can you trust your gut?

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/strategic-decisions-when-can-you-trust-your-gut

by edtechdev • 4 years ago

2 1 4 years ago

mckinsey.com

ggeorgovassilis• 4 years ago

Conversation from 2010 between Kahneman and Klein. Noteworthy quotes:

if you mean, “My gut feeling is telling me this; therefore I can act on it and I don’t have to worry,” we say you should never trust your gut.
I would be wary of experts’ intuition, except when they deal with something that they have dealt with a lot in the past. Surgeons, for example, do many operations of a given kind, and they learn what problems they’re going to encounter. But when problems are unique, or fairly unique, then I would be less trusting of intuition than Gary is. One of the problems with expertise is that people have it in some domains and not in others. So experts don’t know exactly where the boundaries of their expertise are.
No question—if there’s a bias, it’s in that direction [survivor bias around lucky risk takers]. Beyond that, lucky risk takers use hindsight to reinforce their feeling that their gut is very wise. Hindsight also reinforces others’ trust in that individual’s gut.

I'd like to comment on this:

There are some conditions where you have to trust your intuition. When you are under time pressure for a decision, you need to follow intuition.

I disagree. The book "Presuation" talks about conjuring urgency to manipulate decision makers into following fast instincts over slow reasoning.

Strategic decisions: When can you trust your gut?

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