Professor William Duggan from Columbia Business School presents a very interesting idea that builds on recent research on expert intuition which supports the notion that in urgent situations, people make decisions by combining analysis of past experience with a flash of insight. For example, in the 1990s psychologist Gary Klein studied the decision-making processes of emergency room nurses, firefighters and soldiers in battle. While these experts initially attributed their choices to intuition, further probing revealed that they were actually making rapid connections between the situation at hand and similar situations stored in their memories.
He also states that recent brain research provides further evidence that people make decisions through a combination of analysis and intuition. In 2000 a group of neuroscientists won the Nobel Prize for a new model of the brain called intelligent memory, which overturned the previous left-brain/right-brain model. “Basically as you go through life, you’re putting things on the shelves of your brain,” says Duggan. “The scientists call it parsing; it’s technically analysis. Your brain is constantly comparing what it’s taking in to what’s already there, and when it finds a combination — a synthesis — you have an insight.” These ideas are build on the four elements of Napoleon’s approach to strategy: (1) examples from history, (2) presence of mind, (3) a coup d’oeil or flash of insight, and (4) the resolution to move forward and overcome all obstacles.(see Strategic intuition: The key to innovation for details - checked 29 October 2006)
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