Go with Your Gut

As I’m learning in the consulting world, I think it is great to share the lessons and insights I accumulate. After all, every expert started by gathering wisdom en route to where they find themselves today.

That being said, I wanted to talk about instincts in the workplace. One of the things I’ve realized is how crucial swift decision-making is. You’ve likely heard the adage “go with your gut” by now. Do you think that it holds a place in the corporate environment? Is this how you operate in your office space?

Being Decisive Is the New Flex

In my experience, I have seen how essential quick decision-making in action is, time and time again. When I think of going with your gut, the word “decisiveness” immediately comes to mind. Decisiveness is defined as “the ability to make decisions quickly and confidently; having the power or quality of deciding.” 

When people are decisive and go with their gut, they do not hesitate, but instead, they trust their instinct. They have enough confidence in these intuitions that they are firm, determined, and final in their decisions. The important thing is that you make the decision. And if the decision doesn’t work out exactly how you wanted, you adjust. When advising against overthinking, Gary Vaynerchuk (aka Gary Vee) said, “It’s not spending time on the decision, it’s spending time on adjusting or doubling down AFTER you made the decision.” 

Now, I don’t know about you, but from what I have seen in my workplaces over the years, teams respond best to (and desire) leaders who are confident and act in a way that instills our trust in them. They do not show fear and hesitate but instead make decisions without secondguessing their qualifications to do so—and then adjust accordingly. 

Decisive, But With Clear Direction

It’s important not to overthink things and move forward with your gut, as long as there’s a calculated approach to your actions.

What I mean by this is that while you don’t want to get stuck over-analyzing decisions— especially to the point where nothing ends up getting done at all—you still need to have some experience in mind when pulling the trigger on an idea or action.

After all, most people desire a confident leader, but no one wants to follow that leader if they are running straight into a hornet’s nest. There is a trust that all leaders will need to earn from their teams. Trust can only come through actions that reveal both of these key factors:

•  The ability to be self-confident and decisive enough to go with your instincts without hesitation
• The forethought and wisdom to take those actions seriously enough to ensure you’re stepping forward with a solid strategy

Finding the Balance

How do you find the balance between intuition and knowledge? According to Gary Vee, “You need to look logically at the situation, analyze the pros and cons, trust your instincts, and decide.” He also points out that “It’s so much better to try, fail, revise and try again then spend all of your time debating and never actually doing.” And this can come down to drawing from a combination of your intuition and experience. He adds that “You start to develop pattern recognition and then your intuition takes over which allows you to make decisions based on all of your prior experience in life.” 

Here’s to finding the balance.