Intuition Adds to the Bottom Line
Joan Charles introduces us to how we can rediscover our intuitive skills and looks at a case history where such a rediscovery boosted sales.
Intuitive intelligence is widely used in organisations, yet without standards of language or use. Intuitive thinking is inherent in the working habits of individuals, yet is not discussed openly. Good intuitive thoughts often go unused and unspoken and faulty intuitions are unexamined, all costing organisations in time, resources and lost benefits. The main challenge for organisations seeking to encourage intuitive thinking is that intuition functions from a completely different paradigm than the standard, cause/effect, analytic model accepted by organisations today - Nancy Rosanoff
In pre-history we relied upon our intuition to survive: to produce food, be natural healers, and be aware of danger. As we evolved, we learned to harness our surroundings to our will. We discovered fire and agriculture and slowly developed more and more tools, to aid our survival.
In the twenty-first century, survival is still the name of the game, not only in our personal lives but also in business, where we need at all costs, to gain an advantage over our competition. I suggest that, if we don’t begin to hone our intuitive skills once more, in the current rapidly changing business climate, we will fail to seize an opportunity to create a critical competitive edge.
The passing of time has conditioned us into allowing our own basic intuition to be sublimated to linear thinking and, more recently, to technology. We are at a stage when there is a great need to tap into the skills we once had and make them work for us, both personally and in business. We may have lost it along the way but our intuitive armoury is easily re-learned and put back to full working order. Though its rediscovery may, at first, be a bit frightening, as was the discovery of the fire all those millennia ago but intuition can give us the same edge as fire did to our ancestors.
Usually unmeasured by us, we use intuition in all aspects of life and business. The problem lies in realising and utilising it. If we were not so conditioned into thinking it is airy-fairy nonsense, the very fact that we acknowledge it would allow us to take a giant leap forward.
Our American colleagues have been tapping into this skill for at least the last 25 years, with amazing results. Companies like Disney, Oracle and General Motors have all benefited in the past from its use. Weston Agor was ahead of his time in taking intuition to some of these companies and benchmarking the differences it made.
For the last ten years, I have brought the benefit of the Art of Intuition to companies in the UK. I have facilitated their employees in learning how to develop and hone this natural skill to help them add value to the bottom line. With the use of creative tools and techniques, the results achieved have been significant.
It is certain that, by using intuition to access the hidden, or unconscious, elements of any situation, we can all discover new, and highly effective, paths of action that can heighten personal achievement and business success.
Case History: Application of Intuition Skills Development in Sales
In 2007, Joan Murphy won a contract with a well-established creative media company that was looking to take business to the next level, in terms of maximising revenue. Her brief was to analyse the whole business, with a view to deciding where the development of intuitive skills could have a positive impact. She identified the sales team as being a primary target.
It was quite clear to Joan that the sales people were working within their own comfort zones and that their work-related behaviours tended to fall into set patterns that they hit again and again, all of which had negative impact on them and on sales generation. For example, one salesperson would regularly panic, when he felt that new proposals were mounting up and needing attention, at the same time as his regular sales work had to be completed. He would feel overloaded and overwhelmed.
A second salesperson had a very positive mindset but, every so often, would hit his wall, which was: ‘what if I can’t do this?’ His fear would mount to the extent that he would plan, usually subconsciously, an exit route from the company.
A third employee, as a salesperson, had a major problem: he did not want to sell. He tended to hide under regular client accounts and paper work, offering all sorts of excuses for not bringing in new sales.
So, here are three different characters with their own issues who were stuck in their present positions and were in great need of direction that would take them out of the dark places that they had wandered into.
Having identified the underlying issues, Joan moved to the next stage, one of developing in these three employees, and the entire sales force, an understanding of the Art of Intuition and furnishing them with empowering tools, that would give them the direction they wanted. Fascinatingly, through gaining an understanding of their own intuitive dimension, not only were they able to develop solutions for their own issues but, as salespeople, they became much better equipped to deliver appropriate messages to individual clients as well interpreting the messages that they were receiving in return.
Joan helped them to accept the consequences of their negative mode or lack of confidence and trust in their own abilities. Interestingly, she led them to an understanding of the energy and power of intuition and that, when they released this power, they could create win-win situations where everything falls into place as is planned.
In the months following Joan’s intervention, sales have increased massively. I suggest that, if we don't begin to hone our intuitive skills once more, in the currently rapidly changing business climate, we will fail to seize an opportunity to create a critical competitive edge.
