Follow Your Gut

I count myself very fortunate that I don’t have many regrets in business. But I do have a few. Bad inventory purchases, bad hires, bad timing. The one common thread that runs through all of those decisions, almost without exception, is that I didn’t listen to my intuition. My gut was leading me in a certain direction but things checked out “on paper” so I trusted data or reason or industry standards and went another way.

As women business leaders I think we have a tendency  to undervalue our instincts because we assume that “following our gut” won’t hold up as a valid argument in the boardroom. Or that it will somehow be equated with perpetuating the old stereotype of women making decisions based solely on emotion. I'm not even an overly emotional woman but I find myself wanting to prove the stereotypes wrong and to rise up as a strong, logical, data driven leader. Why do we see this as an either/or situation? Can we not use reason and intuition together to reach the best possible decision for our business or career? I believe we can and I believe we should! Here are a few of my thoughts on how to get better at using and trusting our intuition in a professional setting.

Cultivate your intuition

If You don’t use it you lose it. practice using your intuition in everyday situations so that when a big decision is in front of you, you trust yourself. Have a feeling you should take a different route home from work? Do it. Think at the last minute you should say no to girls night out and stay home with the family, try it. In terms of business I personally find my intuition kicks in to high gear when it comes to hiring. People are the life blood of our organizations and we can’t afford to have the wrong people in the wrong positions. So next time you hold interviews check in with your gut to see what it thinks.

Use your team for confirmation

My business partner and I often check in with each other when we’re feeling the tension between logic and intuition when making decisions. A quick phone call to bounce a situation off a trusted colleague or supervisor to weigh in on a decision can really start to hone your sense of intuition. Within our team we have created a culture of such openness and vulnerability around decision making that we are constantly seeking out feedback from each other. Not because we’re incapable of making decisions on our own but because we truly believe that the more eyes on a problem or situation the better and that feedback continues to fine tune our intuition.

Give yourself a decision deadline

You can really fall into over analysis paralysis and start to question your intuition when you let making a final decision linger. If you are making a decision that doesn’t have an external deadline, give yourself one. The weight of the decision should determine the length of the deadline, but this will allow you to sort through the data as well as give you time (but not too much) to listen to your gut.

Support your position based on previous experiences following your intuition 

Once you are a bit more seasoned at listening to and trusting your intuition you will start to rack up “wins” and anecdotal evidence of when your intuition lead you down the right path. When you find yourself at an impasse with partners, colleagues or even yourself start to recount the specific situations and circumstances when you followed your intuition and won. Your track record will speak for itself and give you and your team the confidence to move ahead.

Rather than shying away from a trait that is viewed as more female leaning, let’s embrace this unique quality that can give us a distinct advantage when it comes to making tough decisions in the workplace.