Intuition: The Sublime Gift

I was doing my copy-editing thing for the actuarial magazine, when lo and behold, I was gifted two articles about innovation in the actuarial profession.  I thought that it was quite providential given my renewed interest in creative and innovative actuarial work.  So I took to reading the articles with gusto in the hopes of something to light a fire underneath me.

After reading through them looking for obscure grammatical mistakes, I was disappointed.  I mean innovation should be right up my alley right?  I love looking at things in a new way.  But each article fell flat on their promise of renewed innovation because they were basically puff pieces written to bolster the author’s own image.  But besides the ego stroking on the part of the authors, I sensed a misunderstanding of intuition and how that feeds innovation.

What I got out of the pieces is that innovation can occur if one follows a process or provides enough motivation to create.  One article alluded to the innovative process in some book that he read and how he applied the process to a project at work.  And he wasn’t short of words to describe how well it worked.  The second article was about how a CEO introduced the use of competitions into the company culture in order to facilitate innovation.  Although both addressed innovation, they both conspicuously lacked how intuition plays into innovation.

Take for instance the first article which reduces innovation to following a process.  He equates innovation with the output of some sort of a rote process, some sort of machine that creates innovative insights.  To be fair, that might be a route to innovation.  Having a process to get you to think about things differently might produce innovation.  However, that is not the only route.  Intuition, the gift to be able to infer relationships almost out of thin air, is not a conscious process.  Intuitive folks can innovate and build on their own esoteric insights to create innovation with little, if any, methodology.  It just makes sense and they often may not know exactly why it works.

The second article also has some merit.  Some people do well when there is a contest; they are motivated either by the esteem of their peers or some material prize.  That motivation might be enough for people to “risk” thinking differently if it gives them an advantage.  But the issues with contests are that they need to be judged and entries deemed better or worse in order to determine a winner.  In so doing, everything is in the eye of the judge and what could be preconceived notions on their part as to what a good idea could be.  A truly innovative idea might be beyond the judge’s comprehension and then deemed worth less than a more “conventional” innovation.

But the point about competitions is that some folks thrive in a non-competitive environment.  Intuitive individuals only need time and space to be able to produce phenomenal results.  The fact that an idea is implemented or given consideration is often reward in and of itself.

It is possible that the reason that intuition was not given mention is because it is not a popular concept.  Why?  Well, because not everyone possesses intuition, which is detestable in the modern world’s eyes.  The fact that we cannot be anything that we want to be with or without extraordinary instruction through school is seen as a slight to the modern institution of civilization.  The fact that no matter how grand of a carrot (or Cadbury Crème Egg!) that we give people, nature cannot change.

And indeed we are not the same.  Deep down we are all different and it does not matter how much schooling (basically a rote process) or motivation (even competition) one receives, we cannot change whether someone has the gift of intuition or not.  I believe that innovation for all of humanity would be best served if we accepted the fact that some people have intuition and are best fitted in the world of innovation, while others serve best as implementation of innovation.  The well of innovation exists for any industry or sector, or anywhere – we need to open our eyes to where those well springs are and let them flow.

God bless,

Sven