Last night I watched a documentary on Simone Biles on Netflix. It was about her relationship with being revered as the most complete and dominant athlete in the world versus the mental and physical pressures of being human and living up to that status.
The one comment that hit me was her reference to her intuition. She could see things before they happened. A premonition of sorts. That intuition cut both ways. She could envision her new moves before she landed them (she has 5 skills named after her now). She also envisioned her mental meltdown before it happened in Tokyo. Something was off.
And, in retrospect, the Tokyo Olympics took place just after the COVID lockdown occurred, which made me ask why the hell those games even went on. The fear was rampant. No families or support structures were allowed beyond the athletes and coaches, but I digress.
Last week, I got into a debated discussion on LinkedIn about measurement and how everything can be measured, down to emotional intention. It centered around how a CFO thought his marketing person was “financially careless” in a meeting. Read - did not have supportive data or was not speaking “financial’ with respect to outcomes and perceived as cavalier.
My comment suggested a compromise of taking the CFO to a museum to take in some art and asking the CFO to pick a piece that he liked and say why. My point being, creativity is sometimes hard to explain with a numbers only mentality. It is a gut or intuitive feeling based on a prior experience or some unknown trigger within us. Humans are after all irrational in their decision making.
As mentioned in a prior post, I found Amy Herman’s book Visual Intelligence to be an intriguing perspective on observing vs. seeing something. That distinction became very prominent for me as I utilized that very descriptor to see things differently while visiting museums in London. As well as taking in the countryside and meeting 100 strangers at a gathering.
Does everything have to be measured? I agree from a business perspective the Tate Modern and National Portrait Gallery have numbers to hit to stay open. But, to the observer of the art, it takes on a different dimension. Something more personal. Something more intuitive.
TENSION
As we become more and more quantitative in everything we do, where does the role of intuition come into play? In an age of GAI (Generated Artificial Intelligence) and AGI (Artificial General Intelligence - which achieves human-like cognition and emotional understanding), how will our sense of intuition serve us going forward?
Ethan Mollick recently wrote a piece about the eventual development of AGI (defined above) as the ultimate destination of AI. He believes we are missing a crucial scenario planning component in our business and personal planning modes - we are not accounting for the ever accelerating impacts of AI and its overarching impact on our future states.
He created a GPT Tool that allows for a future scenario planning exercise based on Shell’s scenario planning method and STEEP forces (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental and Political) to map out four potential futures.
I asked his GPT - “how will intuition be applied in the future?”
For the curious - here is the complete GPT output.
The GPT assumed the career of a Psychologist. The STEEP Forces are:
For the TL:DR crowd - here are the possible scenario vignettes:
HUMAN CONNECTION
As a practitioner of narrative design, I am fascinated by the intersections of language, neurosciences and intuition on Human connection.
I continue to dig deeper into what makes us tick and how we are going to deal with the chaos we find ourselves in, between geopolitical shifts, divisive language, addiction inspired social media that pries on our brain and emotional chemical reactions, to the emergence of neurosciences and AI and the unknowns that those applications bring.
This is a lot for the human brain, mine especially, to consider and understand. The only thing we can control is how we shape our intuition and how we rely on it to guide us in our decision making and the choices we make. This can all be supplemented by a quick voice command to your AI co-pilot or agent to augment your intuition (assuming you trust the response).
I appreciate the need to add a quantitative element to balance the potential bias and or to better understand the realities of an intuitive feeling. I have come to believe that you need a balance between the narrative and the numbers to achieve a true sense of confidence for the direction you are heading.
But, then again, what good is a “spidey sense” if you don’t pay heed to it.
NOW (How you are realizing this today)
How do you use your intuition today?
Do you supplement or support your intuition before voicing it?
Can you identify where your intuition thrived and conversely failed you?
NEW (How you will realize this tomorrow)
What will be your approach for using your intuition going forward?
Will you supplement it with data or crowd source or will you just trust it?
I propose that you ask the question in your meetings going forward - “what does your intuition say about this <topic>?”
NEXT (I see a world in which)
I see a world in which trusting and supporting your intuition will be the only thing you can control in a world of uncertainty and accelerating AI.
THE PAYOFF
"Intuition is perception via the unconscious that brings forth ideas, images, new possibilities and ways out of blocked situations." — C.G. Jung
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Tobin raises a very important set of topics related to intuition, and the role of AI in personal development and or psychological healing and healthy adaptation to change.