Decisive Intuition

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick, and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today we're delighted to be speaking with Rick Snyder. Rick wrote the book Decisive Intuition. He is an international business coach, writer, speaker, and consultant and is currently the CEO of Invisible Edge. His breakthrough strategies have been implemented by executives and businesses in Europe, Canada, Asia and the United States and are based on the founder's book, Decisive Intuition, which we're going to talk about.

He was raised in California and recently returned to the Bay area after spending several years in France and London, and brings a global perspective to his teachings. Rick holds an MA in psychology and has worked in health care, tourism, travel and in training, which is clearly what you do today. So Rick, you must be a very busy guy, so thank you so much for making time for us today.

Rick Snyder: You know, it's great to be here. And I didn't tell you, but my folks are from Chicago. Both sides of my lineage are from there, so it's very near and dear to me in that way.

Anita Brick: Well that's great. And if you find that you're going to be here visiting, just let me know. We have this one question. And so I want to make sure that we're all on the same page about intuition. Someone was equating intuition and ESP, which clearly it isn't. So if we can start to we're all on the same page. If you can share with us your definition of intuition.

Rick Snyder: Yeah. So how it's classically defined out there is when we know something in our bones we just know it. We don't need to think about it. We don't need to analyze it. We just know something. How I defined it in my book is a little different, because I want this to be more practical and approachable in the business world and beyond. So how I define intuition is an embodied knowing that comes from listening to what wants to happen next. So it's a conversation in a dialog that we're having throughout the day. It's really using all of my environment and all the signals and cues internally as data points to make better decisions from.

Anita Brick: There was a question from an alum. He said, “Okay, I get this. It's kind of interesting, but I don't know how to filter out, like you said, all the cues. How do you know which cues are noise and which cues should be taken seriously?”

Rick Snyder: The million dollar question here. So it's actually very complicated because there's the outer noise, and what I mean by that is the loud voices of other people around you. So you might have an intuitive hit about where to take your company or a decision you need to make.The boss might have another idea, or there are other people on your team. So there's the outer noise around us, plus the common distractions we all have with social media, smartphones and all of that. There's also the inner noise. There's our inner critic and the chirping that goes on internally. That's actually different from the voice of your intuition.

Here's how I make that distinction. The number one place you have to start is to look at how does my intuition speak to me? What is my intuitive language? Because we all have a different way that our intuition speaks to us. Here's a good way to track that. If I ask a listener a question right now, imagine the last time you had a really strong gut intuition about something and you didn't listen to it. How did that come to you? Was it a feeling in your body? Was it a voice that you heard? An audio message? Was it an image or a picture that you saw? Or did your subconscious speak to you through your dream states? The key is to track, and it takes a lot of self-awareness, but to start to track how does my intuition speak to me? This is going to be the foray into this conversation.

Anita Brick: Okay, so we have a lot of people, students, alumni, few others who come from a really solid data orientation. So students said, “I am a data person. What is the difference between intuition based decision making versus impulsive decision making? Without evidence? They seem a lot alike to me. Thanks for your input.”

Rick Snyder: Fantastic question. I'm also a data person. What I'm saying is it's about including the inner data that you're experiencing, plus the outer data and research that you're also engaging in to make the best decisions possible. So I'm not saying intuition only and ignore the outer research and data. Nor am I saying only go with what's on the spreadsheet and completely ignore your inner experience. I'm saying let's combine the best of both to make the best decisions possible. So I just wanted to name that first for the people who are either looking at one side or the other only.

But this is a really good question. How do I know if it's a real, true intuition that I'm feeling about something, or if I'm just being impulsive? Or maybe I have a bias or a prejudice that's getting in the way. So here's one way to make that distinction. Usually when something is impulsive, we'll notice that our body contracts. It's very tight and narrow, and there's a sense of reactivity. And a lot of times there's an emotional reactivity that's going on. Maybe I'm under a lot of stress.

If I'm coming from a place of reactivity or emotional charge, that's not the best place to make decisions from. And that's when you typically know it's more impulsive, if it's reactive, if you're feeling a narrowness or a tightness in your body where intuition is more about openness, it's more about clarity. You're just actually receptive for the inner data that you might be getting in a given moment. And so intuition is usually very non-emotional in a certain way. And it doesn't have a lot of story and narrative to it. It's just very oh I'm supposed to… this person's a good fit for our team or this career is actually over now and I need to make some changes now. I might have some emotions about that later, but in the moment when intuition arrives, it's actually very clear and it doesn't have a lot of emotional charge to it.

Anita Brick: This is a little squishy area, I think, for me, and I'm assuming for those listening as well. There was another student who said, “My inner critic is really, really strong. I battle with my doubt and it's hard to know if my guidance comes from intuition or negative feelings and emotion. In the past my inner critic has protected me. So I want to give it a voice. How do you know whether your intuition to avoid something is coming from a negative critic, or doubt, or it's coming from a place that would actually help us?”

Rick Snyder: When I was writing the book, I realized there's many voices in our head. We all have an inner critic. We all have this inner saboteur or doubter and working with a lot of business leaders, to me, this is the number one thing that gets in the way of our success. I have a whole chapter dedicated to distinguishing the two. I'll keep it simple here. Usually when your inner critic is present, it's going to be a lot of negative, dramatic, sometimes dark and heavy tones or stories that you're hearing inside. You're going to hear the same broken record that you've probably heard your whole life, like, oh, I can't do this. I'm going to make a mistake. This doesn't make sense. Why take a risk? I'm going to look like a fool. I'm too much or I'm not enough.

There's going to be some repetitive narrative that we all have when it comes to our inner critic, where intuition is not about the past coming up again, it's about the present. It's about being responsive and not reactive. And so it's a very clear message, but there's not all this backstory and all this narrative that goes with that. So it's much more discerning and less judging where the critic is always judging and comparing ourselves. So if you notice that you're comparing yourself all the time, you're probably in your critic, not in that deeper intelligence of your intuition.

Anita Brick: Along those lines, a question came in, “I like to have an answer before asking the question, how can I ask for guidance and be open enough to hear the answer, especially if I don't necessarily expect or like the answer I receive.”

Rick Snyder: The rational mind, which is where most of us operate consciously from, and it likes to be in control. Our rational mind likes to have things be comfortable, predictable, and this is why so many of us want data that's going to predict the future. But as we all know, there's no perfect data that's always going to be able to account for every variable in life. Our best data in spreadsheets can't predict everything, so our linear thinking is actually limited. And this is why our subconscious is so powerful, because it actually processes information 500,000 times faster than our rational mind.

So the question is, how am I willing to suspend my comfort zone and wanting to know the answer and be willing to hang out in uncertainty for a little bit? Because this is where intuition lives. Being open to the unknown, being open to all possibilities, and not just being locked into an answer. Because sometimes I'm going to be led to an answer that's not always comfortable and the biggest and most successful entrepreneurs who have blazed the trail, whether it is Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, today's Elon Musk or Richard Branson and people who are really making the waves in their different industries when they're listening to their intuition that they have to try space travel or try this thing over here that no one's ever done before. You have to be willing to think outside the box and listen to a different rhythm if you're really going to innovate. And so sometimes you have to suspend what's comfortable or what you know, because it's going to take you to some uncomfortable territory. But once again, that's where we learn.

Anita Brick: To add on to that, the follow-on question that came from a student, she said, “I like the idea of asking for guidance, which is kind of what we've been talking about. You write a question, you sleep on it, you go take a walk. You do something to free up the space for your subconscious, your intuitive mind to bubble up with answers.” And I thought this was an interesting question. She said, “How do I know if the answer I receive is worth listening to and more specifically, worth acting on?”

Rick Snyder: Here's what I say. Just like any skill that you're learning to build, let's say it's a musical instrument. You don't get up on stage right away. You start practicing your scales, maybe in your room or with your teacher, and eventually you start getting better and you improve your skill set. And eventually you can make jazz and make that happen on stage eventually. Same is true with intuition. Where how do I first build a track record with myself and build a reputation with myself on when I get an intuitive signal or Q, how do I take a baby step? Or maybe I don't confront my boss right away if I think we're going the wrong path in the middle of a team meeting, but maybe I put someone on the side one on one and say, hey, I was getting this really strong intuition about something, can I check that out with you?

So I can actually practice taking baby steps in what I'm feeling and then acting on that. And I might not go from 1 to 10, but maybe I take that first step and I check in with somebody else. And I also ask a colleague that I trust, or an advisor that I trust and say, hey, here's the feeling I'm getting. What about you? What are you getting over there? And so I can start to test out my instrument as I learn how to listen better at my inner signals and cues.

Anita Brick: Could we talk about two scenarios that came out? One from an alum and one from a student?

Rick Snyder: Yeah. Let's go.

Anita Brick: The first one was from an alum and he said, “I'm in the midst of a challenging time in my company. There's a new CEO and I was aligned with the former CEO. How can I use intuition to help me decide whether to stay in my company or go somewhere else? By the way, I like linear.”

Rick Snyder: I do on some level. Let's get practical, right? First of all, whatever alumni is asking this question, I think you're already using your intuition. I think you're already getting a sense the old leadership was in alignment for you and the new leadership is not. That is what I'm getting from your question. And you already know that. And here's what I think is important to test this out. You need to ask yourself, you know, once again, what are my highest values? This is just getting very practical here/ What are my highest values and what is it that I want to contribute to this company, and does this align with what's most important for me and what I'm learning about my own advancement professionally and my highest values that I care about? Is there room for me to be myself at work and to contribute fully? And if not, am I still getting enough benefit than drawbacks to stay there?

If it's starting to feel like there's more disadvantages than advantages? And I noticed I'm coming home unmotivated, I'm feeling burnt out, or I'm feeling flat and my life is precious. And so if I'm not enjoying myself, the first step, I would say, is a first of all, that's good data that you're getting is using your intuition to track all of that. Number two, how can I start to bring myself more forward at work? Can I say something to the new boss? Can I even start to own my direct manager? I'm not feeling as motivated here, or I'm feeling like my ideas are not being received. Can I talk about that with you? So I think there's still a place to bring that next step and just see is there room in your company culture for your voice and does that have an impact? Does anyone listen? And if not, that's also really good data for you.

Anita Brick: Well, to go along with that. How do you mitigate the risk of bringing up to your manager that you're no longer as motivated? It feels like that's a risky proposition unless you already have something lined up or you have enough runway where if you're let go, you're okay.

Rick Snyder: Yeah, a lot of it is going to depend on your level of trust because there are managers out there that are really trying to do best for their direct staff, and they really want you to succeed. And I think it's actually more of a travesty if you don't say anything and you just sit on it for weeks and weeks and months and months, quarter after quarter, and that's not going to improve anything by just holding on to what's true for you. I get what you're saying about playing it safe on some level. First thing I would say is test out, do you have enough trust with your manager where you can broach the subject, and maybe you can broach it in a way that doesn't put you fully at risk and you don't have to blame the new boss or blame anything specifically, but just, can I test the waters here? And is my manager even receptive to really try to help me get more aligned with the company? And if it's a good manager, they're gonna want to make sure you're motivated and engaged.

Anita Brick: Okay, so a couple of things. Push back a little bit here. I was not at all suggesting to play it safe, that's not it, it's really to mitigate the risk. But the other thing that I've always been told is if I come to you and you're my manager and I'm bringing a problem to you, in this case, I'm not as motivated as I used to be. That I should be bringing a solution as well. Now, if you reject the solution, that's a good piece of data to understand where things stand, but if you came to me as your manager with I'm not as motivated, unlike I, why did you just throw that problem at me? But if you come and say I've noticed, things change and I'm looking for ways to up my motivation, I thought of A, B and C, and I think these could be valuable to the company and I think it will help me restart however you want to say it, but it seems to me that you need to bring a solution, not just a complaint.

Rick Snyder: Yeah, I think your approach is fantastic. I like the positive reframe you just did right there. Where you're not just saying, hey, I got a problem, I don't like the new boss. Solve it for me, which is not what I'm saying, but I like that distinction you just made of, hey, I want to up my motivation, and I think a good manager actually will intuitively be able to read between the lines. It's actually the manager's job to track those things. If they want a high performing team.

Anita Brick: And I think just like you said, these are experiments and you see what works and what doesn't. As you said, like every person is different.

Rick Snyder: I might have ten people that are managing and I need to approach everyone in a different way.

Anita Brick: Right.

Rick Snyder: So this is why intuition is so important, actually, because I'm able to read out the needs, the underlying needs of each of my team members.

Anita Brick: Got it. So there was a scenario that you presented in the book and a student picked up on it. She said, “You talk about a leader in a company in Australia who uses financials as a basis for his informed intuition, it seemed like magic to me. Can you please unpack this and make it more understandable to a client like me? I really want to know how he did it. Thanks in advance.”

Rick Snyder: So let's talk about data and intuition. That's a lot of the crux of the question so far. Part of the scientific method is having a hypothesis that actually means having a hunch, having an intuition. It's part of science. When we're looking at patterns, where we're looking at data streams. One thing that I want to say is raw data doesn't mean anything to human beings until you can tell its story. And so this is what I mean by intuition with data and numbers, and I call this informational intuition. There's some people out there. If you're a quant you might be like this. You start to recognize patterns very quickly and you start to get a feel for, hey, something's off in that column over there. Double check that.

In fact, my father is like that. He was a CFO for a long time. He could just tell when a row or a column was off with the ratios or the number that he saw, and he would say, hey, double check that one right there. And I might say, what are you talking about? I've been at this for a couple days. I think these are the right numbers. He would just know right away. No, no, no, double check that one. And he was right ten times out of ten. Part of this comes with experience. Part of it comes with knowing your craft. Over time, you start to pick up on the shortcuts and the heuristics. It might seem like magic to someone who's just not so experienced in that data set, but someone who's been in the data for a long time. They start to get a feel for different patterns and so that's really what I'm talking about.

Anita Brick: Got it. So it is really the interconnectedness of story and data.

Rick Snyder: To me, intuition is not magic and it's not esoteric. It's our most innate intelligence that we have. And it's really our subconscious kicking in so much faster that our conscious mind is aware of. So when we're exposed to the same kinds of data sets or new data sets, and we've just been exposed to that time and time again, we're going to start seeing patterns that our subconscious is picking up on. So we're able to make better decisions and faster decisions when our linear mind is taking a pause or a break, even just for a little bit of time.

Our subconscious is so much more powerful than we give ourselves credit for. When we start to relax and just take a look at the data that we're engaged with, it's amazing how we're able to pick up on those patterns right away. It's very practical.

Anita Brick: It's a very practical thing, and an alum brought up something. But having read the book that you talk about in the book, and it has to do with intuition, being an entrepreneur is your best friend. What he said was, “I recently watched a number of pitches for potential funding from my VC firm. How does intuition play out when you're making that kind of funding decision? When again, the numbers look great, the people look solid, and the difference between two companies, which one you find, and which one you don't find can be razor thin.”

Rick Snyder: Also to add one more complexity is when you're in a situation like that, everyone's trying to sell their best self to you.

Anita Brick: Oh yeah.

Rick Snyder: Just like any sales conversation or any kind of investment pitch, a lot of times they're trying to sell their best help to you. So this is where intuition is so critical. And so yes, do all the research and kick the tires of the company and look at their financials of course, and do I sense congruence in not only what they're saying but how they're saying it? If someone is doing an investment pitch, do I get this kind of funny sense in the back of my awareness that there's just a way I feel like they're trying too hard, or I just don't believe them or how they say things. They don't believe in themselves, and they're actually not confident in their own product or their own service. And I can kind of get a sense of that.

Or they're trying to oversell themselves versus a leader who's really humble, a leader who doesn't need to overcompensate because they really are confident in themselves. You can start to tease out these nuances when you start to practice these skills. A quant might be saying, well, Rick, that sounds really gray, really squishy, and so some of this literally can't be known until you practice, until you practice being more mindful in tracking your inner signals and cues, until you actually take some time out of your day to slow down and to listen. Because your intuition is going off all the time and if you don't stop to listen to it, you're not actually aiding your decision making with one of the most powerful resources that you have available.

Anita Brick: I like that, I think that's very good advice. What if we now flip it to the other side? I'm the entrepreneur making the pitch. What should I do ahead of time to make sure that I am congruent?

Rick Snyder: Yeah, I think two things. First, on your own side of the street, notice where you're not confident or not congruent. Where is there a disconnect if you're actually starting counterintuitively with the opposite? So where do you still have questions about your own service or product, about your financials, about your projections, about your team? Where do you not have some of your bases covered? So I would start there first because you want to get congruent and aligned with your company and your pitch. So I think step number one, get congruent by looking at where you feel disconnected? Where do you feel not congruent. And then you can get help and mentoring and take those steps to close those gaps.

And then number two I would definitely practice your pitch. Get in your body, breathe, go slow, make contact with your audience and actually practice that with some colleagues and friends and get feedback on how you present, because so often it's not what you say, it's how you say it that actually is compelling in slowing down and getting embodied is really important when you present. The last thing I'll say is know your audience. Do your research. Who are you actually pitching in front of? I have a great story in my book. This is a true story. A huge opportunity for this person. He goes into the room. He had been practicing the slide deck presentation for months, and then right when he walked in the room, he saw everyone in hoodies. Everyone's kind of iconoclastic and he's like, oh boy, I didn't intend the right audience here for this pitch. And what he did was amazing. He listened to his intuition, which was saying, hey, get rid of the slide deck. Make this engaging and more casual. He had the courage to do that in the moment. He made a real time decision, coming strong from his intuition and he said, you know what, I'm just going to engage and ask good questions and he ended up getting the deal. If he’d gone that traditional route, he would have lost them.

Anita Brick: I think you're right, but it takes a lot of courage. That's why it's so important that experimenting and beginning to rely more on your intuition, doing it in low risk environments where you can either pivot in the moment or the consequences are pretty minimal, will give you confidence to test it out in bigger and bigger things. Kudos to him that he had the guts to shift in the moment and deliver what he felt was needed in that moment. Some people would have just stuck to what they had prepared because they needed that.

Rick Snyder: I want to speak even one level deeper of what I think is really being asked here in all these questions is really this fundamental question of, can I trust myself? Can I fundamentally trust what I'm feeling and experiencing, and what if I can't? I feel that when people are really under confident and not trusting themselves, it's all about metrics, metrics, metrics. And here's the other side. When people are overconfident about their gut, then it's all about gut, gut, gut. And they can be overconfident that way. There's really a sweet spot. How do you take the best of your data, and also include the best of your inner data and signals and cues for making the best decisions possible? And what the research is showing is that when you're dealing with uncertainty and complexity, it is the best time to incorporate your intuition in the decision making process.

Anita Brick: Very true, and I would say that often it's an iterative process. It's not like a one and done. Okay, now based on process interplay between intuition and data I have a new hypothesis and it may go back and forth a few times.

Rick Snyder: That's all right. I might have a new hypothesis, but then I need to test it, and then I can refine it. And I just want to say for the record here, even though I wrote the book on intuition, I don't always listen to mine. It's a day to day practice. And I think it's not about being perfect, but it's about how do I get more conscious and include more of that in my day so that my moments are a little more informed and I'm deciding from a wiser place. Even though it's a struggle, it's a daily practice that's going to improve over time.

Anita Brick: I agree. Do you have time for one more question?

Rick Snyder: For sure.

Anita Brick: Okay, good. When you think about this, intuition has multiple components. It plays out in virtually every area of our life. When you think about it, what are three things that you would advise someone who's listening today to do to make intuition a way to be more successful in their careers and life?

Rick Snyder: I'll just say one thing first is that the two great advantages that intuitions give you are they help you read out what's happening in your environment in real time, on a much more refined level. And then number two, they help you anticipate the future and anticipate where things are moving toward. Those are the two biggest advantages of your intuitive intelligence. Then back to the question: how do I engage with it? Here would be my three biggest tips to get started. And by the way, the book gives you six steps to get in touch with your intuition. But if I were to make it really simple, number one would be starting to track. How does my intuition speak to me? So what is my intuitive language? And I could even go back in hindsight and look at different times in my life where I know I should have made a different choice and I didn't listen. And so once again, how did that speak to me? And I can start to use that as a real data point for how my intuitive language speaks to me.

So number one is starting to decode my language. Number two, I need to actually slow down. So I need to find more moments in my day, and when I work with executives, sometimes I literally make them take a tech break for like ten minutes and I have them actually go outside or find a quiet office space where you can be alone and just reflect on whatever question you're sitting with. Slowing down and taking a tech break, number two, and then number three, try taking a small action step just to test this out. And as you said in a low risk environment. So maybe I get an intuition about a hiring decision or a strategic decision. And maybe I'll confer with a colleague and just see what they think. And is my intuition spot on. And if you start practicing this on a daily basis, your intuitive skills are going to rapidly grow in an incredible amount of time, and your ability to then bring this to your work life is going to be seamless, but it's going to take practice, and these three steps will really help you get there.

Anita Brick: I would agree, I don't think you get to a point where you're done. I think the practice continues even after you get good at it.

Rick Snyder: 100%. Just like awareness in intelligence and consciousness, it keeps deepening the further you go with it and the more you put attention on it. Just like growth, it's really never ending. This is something that we can all continue to learn from as we deepen.

Anita Brick: Very interesting. This is a little bit of a stretch, I think, for all of us. Thank you. Thank you for writing the book. Thank you for making us stretch in terms of how we perceive things and the opportunities that we can gain from tapping more into intuition.

Rick Snyder: You're so welcome, and I'm glad that this is a little bit stretching the norm and that's the intention. To stretch all of our mindsets in our box a little bit, if not a lot, so that we can be open to innovative thinking and new ways of approaching.

Anita Brick: I love it, it's really great. Thank you very much. Decisive Intuition, which is the book. If you want to learn more you can go to Rick's site which is www.invisible-edgellc.com/.Thanks again Rick.

Rick Snyder: Thanks for having me.

Anita Brick: And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.