Lesson 4: THE INTUITIVE AND THE STRATEGIC THINKER

Introduction

How does one become prudent in a culture with overwhelming information and demands?

This chapetr will present the intuitive and strategic thinking processes. It will show how one can come up
with a quick decision or conclusion without being partial but promoting the common good. It will introduce as well
the rigors of intuitive and strategic analysis and how both could work hand in hand.

Main Ideas
 Intutive thinking can be as powerful and accurate as analysis.
 Intuition can work advantageously in challenging trends and patterns of the 21 st century.
 Intuitive and strategic thinking work in hand in hand.

Strategic Thinking and Intuitive Thinking Defined

Greg Githens defined strategic thinking as the individual’s capacity for thinking conceptually, imaginatively,
systematically, and opportunistically with regard to the attainment of success in the future.

Further, he said that strategic thinking employs mental processes that are conceptual , systematic,
imaginative, opportuinistic.
 Conceptual – abstractions using analogy to translate across contexts
 Systematic- composed of different components with interfaces that interact to produce intended or
emergent behaviors, pattern finding, and connecting situations that are not obviously related
 Imaginative-creative and visual
 Opportunistic- searching for and grasping new information and value propositions

The strategic thinker applies all of these cognitive processes in the orientation toward future success.

Intuitive thinking is “quick and ready insight” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary).
Intuitive decision-making is far more than using common sense because it involves additional sensors to perceive
and get aware of the information from outside. Sometimes, it is referred to as gut feeling, sixth sense, inner sense,
instinct, inner voice, spiritual guide, etc.

The following are some well-known people of intuition (Timeforchange.org):

1. Albert Einstein (Theoretical physicist who is widely considered one of the greatest physicist of all time; best
known for the theory of relativity, Nobel Prize in Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect and
“for his services to Theoretical Physics”):
 <<The only real valuable thing is intutition.>>
 <<There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition,
which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.>>
2. John Naisbitt (Former executive of IBM and Eastman Kodak; American writer in the area of future studies;
author of several international best sellers like Megatrends and Reinventing the Corporation):
 Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so
much data.>>
3. Alexis Carrel (French surgeon, biologist and eugenicist; Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine)
  All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis what they need to
know.
 Intuition comes very close to clairvoyance; it appears to be the extrasensory perception of reality.
4. Henry Reed (British poet)
 Intuition is the very force or activity of the soul in its experience through whatever has been the
experience of the soul itself.
 It is as if the intuitive sense acting through the soul is what makes the raw events into food for the
soul.
5. Immanuel Kant (German philospher)
 Intuition and concepts constitute… the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts
without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield
knowledge.
6. George Crumb (American composer of modern and avant grade music):
 In general, I feel that the more rationalistic approaches to pitch-organization, including specifically
serial technique have given way, largely, to a more intuitive approach.
7. Robert Graves (English poet, scholar, and novelist):
 Intuition is the supre-logic that cuts out all the routine processes of thought and leaps straight from
the problem to the answer.
8. Lao Tzu (ancient Chinese philosopher):
 The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.
9. Anne Wilson Schaef (writer and lecturer):
 Trusting our intuition often saves us from dissater.

The question is not whether rational reasoning or intuitive decision-making is generally better. The question
is rather how both approaches can be best combined for best results and to avoid mistakes and prejudices.

THREE TYPES OF THINKERS

Uncritical, Selfish, and Fair-minded Critical Thinkers
Paul, Binker, and Weil

A basic, though abstract, explanation for the differences between uncritical, slefish critical, and fair-minded
critical persons is given in the following brief characterizations:
1. Uncritical persons are those who have not developed intellectual skills; persons who are naïve, conformist,
easily manipulated, often inflexible, easily confused, typically unclear, narrow-minded, and consistently
ineffective in their use of language. They may have a good heart but they are not able to skillfully analyze the
problems they face so as to effectively protect their own interest.
2. Selfish critical persons are skilled thinkers who do not genuinely accept the values of critical thinking;
persons who use the intellectual skills of critical thinking selectively and self-deceptively to foster and serve
their vested interest (at the expense of truth). They are typically able to identify flaws in the reasoning of
others and refute them and to back up their own claims with plausible reasons; by doing so they have not
learned how to reason emphatically within points of view with which they disagree.
3. Fair-minded critical persons are skilled thinkers who do accept and honor the values of critical thinking;
persons who use the intellectual skills of critical thinking to accurately reconstruct the strongest versions of
points of view in conflict with their own and to question deeply their own framework of thought. They try to
find and correct flaws in their own reasoning and to be scrupulously fair to those with whom they disagree.