Intuition is the thing that’s often missing in
communication. After all, if you have intuition about your audience (what they’ve
experienced, their motivations, etc.) you can engage with them more effectively.
And if you’re faced with a business decision about which you have to
communicate, intuition is a guide that won’t let you down.
Call it a hunch – or, following your gut.
Intuition isn’t entirely learned, nor are you just born with
it. As a journalist, I had to mentally process huge amounts of incoming data and
decide what’s important to the reader or viewer and how to serve it up. It was
important to be a quick study.
It certainly helped that there was a lot of
sameness in what we saw day-in and day-out: political scandals, shootings,
fires, missing children, a hero’s homecoming. You felt like
you’d seen this movie before.
Certainly much of my intuitive ability was cultivated and
practiced in a newsroom. Intuition is one of the three pillars of Novaria
Communication: intelligent, intuitive, influential. I help
people communicate intelligently, with an intuition about their environment,
and in a way that will influence their stakeholders. So imagine my delight when
I read a piece in Huffington Post that says intuition is a highly valued attribute in the
business world. The author explains how intuitive people cultivate and access their sense of “knowing.”
Intuition takes many forms, like knowing what’s going to
happen next, like a feeling of déjà vu because you’ve experienced something so
very similar before, like that comment you make and somebody else says “I was
thinking the exact same thing.”
Intuition isn’t the only imperative for business and
communications success, however. Some scenarios call for a more deliberate
approach. I grew up in Missouri – the Show-Me State – where we took a little
extra time and sized things up before coming to a conclusion. People say that
Midwestern sensibility is a highly-valued attribute.
I think it comes down to being grounded. Experience helps.
Having been through countless business transformations, counseling numerous
executives and steering communications and engagement initiatives, I honestly
believe that saying “there’s nothing new under the sun.” Yes, the people are
different, the organizations are different, even innovation brings different
ways of doing things, but the fundamental motivations are the same. People want
the same outcomes – efficiency, ease, transparency, clarity, honesty.
Intuition tells me that. And it hasn’t failed me yet.
Today's question: How has intuition saved your bacon?