Intuitive Decision Making

A friend of mine told me about a presentation he was preparing for a company event a few weeks ago. It was very important and all the other groups in this company had months to prepare for it. But he and his team were only notified the week before the event.

At first they felt unprepared and unable to get anything ready in time and on par with the other presentations. But they didn’t have a choice so they worked hard for a week and just gave it their best shot.

The result: their presentation was by far the most original, clear and professional one of all. This is an endorsement for my Deserted Island Strategy ideas but it also reminded me of another lesson from art school: If you add too many colors to a painting and mix them all up the result is a painting that isn’t bright and multi colored but muddy brown and without depth.

And muddy brown and without depth is a pretty accurate description of most company presentations, isn’t it? We all know how these things work when too much time is spend and too many people have to look at things and offer their opinion. You start out with a fresh and genuine idea but then everybody has to throw in their own original ideas too just to show that they are quite inventive too. The end result after all this friendly advice and modifications is a weak product with no identity and no sharp edges.

Sometimes is pays off to take a more intuitive approach to making a presentation, writing a document or doing anything in general. Try this on Monday:

If you have to make a decision, follow your first instinct

How do you do that? Simply by doing the first thing that comes up and sticking with it. Your second thought might be ‘That doesn’t seem logical’ or ‘that would be too funny’ but ignore those thoughts and just do what you intuitively thought was right. Post the result in the comments here.

Word of advice: when you operate a nuclear sub or work with dangerous substances or doing any other work which might kill you if done wrong please ignore this post.