Now there’s no particular order of thoughts that you recall of that moment when your brain just felt right to hold the balance. But that doesn’t mean there were no calculations behind that decision. Your brain knew just what to do – it made its judgment before taking that decision.
Our brains are wired to make decisions based on judgment. It works much better than a super computer because it takes into account facts, information as well as visible clues like facial expressions and body language and tone of voice. Moreover, it also considers a person’s intention, past experiences and probable consequences before doing anything which no computer is able to do ever.
Making a judgment is not just assembling of information. No wonder then that there are times in everyone’s life when a person goes beyond what is obvious, flouts what the information and experiencestell him and makes a judgment completely contrary to rational thought. We all have known of that one investor who goes against conventional wisdom and advice and decides to invest in a startup that is bleeding losses. This is when his brain hints towards trusting his own judgment, his strong instinct that though the company may not be profitable now, it holds potential for a turnaround.
Business normally runs on such judgments that defy conventional wisdom.
Gut Feeling vs Judgement
Are they same? No. They are not.
Judgment is majorly based on calculations that the brain makes about the feasibility or its absence thereof. These calculations may be done within a second but do take into account several variables. Gut instinct on the other hand is plain gamble. You can never quite substantiate why you made a decision based on gut instinct. More often, people who claim to be adept at successful bids through gut instinct do make judgments based on certain variables, though they refuse to credit their brain for the same.
When can you trust your judgment?
In simple terms, the more your decisions turn up successful, the more you can trust your judgment that helped you decide. It has been proven that people who are good at judgment often have a keen eye for the minutiae. They observe better, listen carefully and ask questions in plenty. They know their strengths and weaknesses well and weigh them into their decisions through information gathering. All these traits help them gather more information that they can base their decision upon.
A Bain and Co. report a few years ago spoke about why companies like Apple, Netflix, Google and Dell are 40% more productive than the others.
- That’s because they use the three ingredients of time, talent and energy more efficiently.
- The report said that the top 16% of the employees of these companies accomplished by 10.30 a.m. Thursday what other company employees did till Saturday.
- This compounded over decades to become more successful than other companies.
- Add to it the freedom that these companies give their employees to make judgments rather than relying solely on processes.
- This saves a good 25% of productivity that would otherwise have been lost to Organizational Drag.
- Trusting employee judgment allows them to operate freely without being held back. Read more...
