Читать книгу The Power of Being - Андреас Грубер - Страница 19

We usually like to consider ourselves as rational beings, especially in corporate life. To be emotional in our jobs is usually not connected with positive associations. And yet we have known for years that we do not take rational decisions at all. We do make a lot of decisions by habit or even by reaction, and it seems that the rest is generated emotionally. Afterwards, we seek logical reasons and make it look like a rational decision. Sometimes people refer to the gut feeling when taking decisions. Personally, I could never relate to that. Maybe the definition was too general or too unclear to me, but I think I wasn't the only one with those kind of doubts. Something that made sense to me originates from the Canadian Alan Krakower. According to him, there are six authorities within us helping us to take decisions. We all have one of them dominating our decision-making process. This is clearly not a scientific approach. However, this alternative view may open doors to new understanding.

The four main categories are the emotional authority, the gut authority, the intuitive authority and the will authority. None of these are related to the intellect. Normally, we would throw all four in one basket. However within that basket, there would be big differences. Some of them are likely to be overlooked altogether. Let's have a look and see what's in it for us.

According to Krakower, the emotional corresponds to 50 percent of the population. They need to go through their emotional wave, to be able to take a decision. To trigger their emotions, they must get involved with all their senses, and they need time. Nevertheless, they can never expect to reach absolute certainty. So they wait for their emotional wave to go through, to give them the feeling of relative certainty, and as long as that isn't happening, no productive decisions will be taken. It seems to be tempting to persuade or force this group, but that's a perilous path, because deep within they'll feel violated.

The second largest group with around 25 percent are the gut decision takers. They don't need much time, and they are likely to get a rather clear signal in the gut area when to go for it. They usually talk about a kind of "chakka- feeling”.

The third group is the intuitive group that corresponds to around 15 percent. This signal from the body is linked to the spleen according to Krakower, and it is fast as lightning. It manifests in the body as a tingling sensation, and they say it only occurs once per decision. So these people need to listen to their body signal at a very early stage in the information process. It's more like "bzzz-feeling" and they just know that feels right. If the signal doesn't come, there is no decision on that particular matter. It may take some practice and sensitivity to notice it at first.

The fourth group is connected to the will and the heart. It manifests as an almost obsessive feeling. This group usually reacts to things they become acquainted with, and if their heart responds to some issue, it carries them away completely. They become almost unstoppable. This group only corresponds to about 8 percent of the population, but the interesting thing could be, that many leaders are likely to be found in this category, according to this theory.

I certainly did not belong to the two major categories, so I was always wondering what people were referring to when they talked about gut decisions. Of course, this is just a model, and it's not scientific at all. However, it can be helpful because it opens up new options for understanding for this delicate process. If this model were to be relevant, it would be wise to listen to the body more when taking decisions.

Wherever a decision comes from, we need good decision making. Many important decisions need to be taken collectively in meetings. Imagine your team with 50 percent emotional, 25 percent gut and 15 percent intuitively based decision takers. What if there was something valid in this view? What would your presentation look like if this was true? What if more than 50 percent of all participants were to be slow decision makers, would you change your approach or subtly force them to say, yes?

Collective decision making is a fascinating and rewarding matter to take a closer look at. We are playing a lot of games when decisions are made. To improve your decisions, you can easily heighten your awareness by doing the following. Let's say you had some options and based on these choices a decision starts to take shape.

Ask yourself - what assumptions do I base this decision on? And, what do I base these assumptions on? Go all the way back to your body signals.

Every idea, proposal or decision is based on assumptions, some of them rational and others emotional. Whatever it is, start noting your assumptions. We usually think we are so clever that we already know. However when you do ask yourself this simple question, and explicitly dissect your assumptions about it, you may be surprised, amazed, or annoyed. This little habit is likely to save you a lot of trouble. It is a great tool to prevent you from jumping to wrong conclusions.