The Myth of Experience

Intuition is a concept that plays a major role in decision-making for all humans. Intuition is the way we can "know" things without using our reasoning. It is based on our instincts and experiences, and our need to find patterns for things in our lives.    Unfortunately, intuition isn't always right. Knowing when intuition could be correct and when it might not be is a critical skill for any of us, particularly in business.    Robin Hogarth's book, The Myth of Experience, can help. In it, Hogarth has theories about intuition and how it forms, and in what conditions it might be more reliable than others.    In this episode, we explore the idea of intuition, how cognition affects it, and what environmental factors affect its reliability. We also share some practical advice on how you can overcome your propensity to use instinct and combine it with rational processes to get the best possible outcome for yourself and your organization.      Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience   We talk about intuition as a "gut feeling" or "something we know in our hearts." However, intuition lives squarely in our brains. It is part of the two systems of cognition that we all share. One system is fast and automatic, while the other is slow and methodical. Intuition comes from the fast and automatic part, so understanding how that works will also help you understand when your intuition is serving you—or failing you.   03:48 Ryan discusses what he learned from Hogarth's book regarding where intuition comes from and how it forms. 06:31  We discuss how intuition plays a role in my Apple product obsession.  10:45  Hogarth's research indicates that there are two environments under which intuitions form, kind and wicked, which has a video that explains it well.  15:51  We discuss how you might not always know which kind of environment you are in, kind or wicked, and are often fooled; this video also explains how people get fooled and why.  23:48   Moneyball, either the book or the movie, gives us a good example on how to build upon the instinctive decisions we favor and coupling that with rational processes to ensure it isn't wrong. 25:42  We share the practical advice we can glean from this concept and apply them to your decision making and what resources you trust.   Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey.    Customer Experience Information & Resources   LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 290,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy as one of the best management consultancies for the last four years in a row. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter.   Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.    Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 35,000 subscribers.    How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.