The gut feeling in a organisational context

The gut feeling, sometimes referred to as our intuition, or sixth sense, can to some people be a somewhat strange concept. We dont really give it academic credit or strong relevance in a professional context, and yet we all have some experience with it. Whether we use the awareness from our emotional response on a conscious level or not.

The truth is that we can't control when emotions show themselves. 

They can be evoked in different scenarios and in many different contexts. Nothing we can do about that. They just appear at any given moment and often when we least expect it. But what we can learn, is to become better at observing them and use the informations they provide.

Every time we interact with the world around us we will experience some sort of physical reaction. In a way it is how we as organisms communicate.  It is important in everything that we do. What sparks an emotional reaction happens whether we pay attention to them or not. So it is up to us if we want to feast on the informations and use them to better our lives.

We are complex beings. And whenever we face any decisions in life, we are relying on inputs from more than one system. 

They provide valuable information to help us make the best choices when it comes to our survival. This is based off of several important considerations.

✅  Does it feel safe ?

✅  What prior experiences can I draw from ?

✅  When I combine all the cognitive, and sensory inputs from then and now, do they then agree on the best action ?

Because of the inherited and evolutionary traits, and because it is a premise for survival on a basic level, we will not succeed if we think we can keep them out of our decision making process .

Organisations have structures. 

They have frameworks that we accept as part of the agreements when we take on a position. There is a leadership chain of command that apply.  We all have bosses ( at least when we work for a company ). But accepting those premises is not equally an argument for ignoring our values, our beliefs, or neglecting our own health in the process. 

A theme that often comes up when I coach clients is how to balance between wanting to help and contribute to the team, unit, or organisation, without loosing the sustainable compass. In order to do good for others, taking care of the team, and pursuit KPI´s, we can forget our own needs. Balancing inputs and outputs. Minding our own resources.

Through out our careers we are almost exclusively rewarded for the use of our intellect. 

Not only do we get rewarded, promoted, and praised for it, it is also what we use when we plan deadlines, solve complex tasks, and strategically navigate in different stakeholder landscapes and client relations. So in our professional lives we are more used to use cognition, reasoning, and planning as our "survival strategy".  Especially in a high performance culture, where the pressure to deliver is always present.

And a high performing environment often comes with some challenges of its own. 

Stressful environments will affect how well we can collect honest and useful informations from our somatic systems. This is part due to the influence our hormonal stress response systems have on our reasoning skills, emotional cueing, and our ability to feel empathy. 

The higher alertness state will push us away from sensory precision and towards autopilot mode. We will loose some of the sensory autonomy. And instead rely more on reaction and atomisation. 

Evolutionary we have always used cognitive reasoning as part of a survival strategy. 

It is the reasoning skills that helps us when we draw on our experiences and put them into a context of the present. Eg. Last time I tried to pet the sabre tooth lion cups, I did not turn out well. So this time I will choose a different strategy.

But when it comes to leading ourselves and live a life aligned with our values, reasoning alone dont fare well as a preferred strategy. Connecting the cognitive top down approach with the emotional and fine tuned sensory systems will allow for better alignment and more accessible options when it comes to applying the response that is most in tune with our core values.

When we are in the midst of things, we can easily forget our awareness.

We sense things on many different levels. We take in informations and process them on a conscious and cognitive level. We combine those inputs with a sensory processing. What we hear, smell, see, feel. All systems that are inherited down through evolution. They are there for a reason. But in our busy lifes we have forgotten how to use them to our advantage.

It is time to re-connect with our gut feeling

Ever walked out of a meeting and suddenly felt the burden of a decision you took, that did not align with your values or the resources of your schedule? The extra 50 hours you have committee to find in an already full 50 hour a week calendar. Or the assignment you agreed to take because nobody else raised their hand? 

But what seems like a sudden epiphany, was actually there all the time. The information was available to you while you where in the meeting. But you somehow neglected them. Maybe it was the feeling of pressure that made you volunteer. Maybe you did not have the courage to speak up and suggest other solutions. Maybe the fear of disagreeing and make somebody else upset, felt worse than taking on the extra work load.

Most of the time we know what is the right thing for us to do. 

Being aware of our emotional markers and the sensory inputs we receive and act on them is not an easy task. It requires courage. It requires that we dare to stand up for what we feel is right or wrong.

Instead of just figuring out the best solution to our problems cognitively, we must allow for the information coming from below our neck to penetrate and blend into our decision making process. Using awareness on a daily basis. In all the decisions we make. But it can be a tuff task to ask. A strategy that I sometimes suggest is that we lower the bar. Allowing for smaller wins. Practicing in a less dangerous setting. Like the coffee cue, Meeting a colleague in the elevator, taking to a stranger. It will become easier over time but starting with the senior partner that is also going to decide on your promotion, and bonus at year end might be a little too hard to begin with.

How can I practice the skills in a real life setting ?

We basically have two areas of expertise to practice.

1. The first is to become more  aware of ourselves - to become better at sensing and interpreting emotional cues.

2. The second one is all about how to communicate our observations,  and bring them into the action phase. This is where we connect what we sense with our cognitive and intellectual processing skills.

It is completely normal to feel challenged. Practicing number 1 without moving to number 2 is ok. In fact it is a good way of practicing without the pressure of "must act".