Visionary decision making happens at the intersection of Intuition and Logics

 

“When mind reasons and gut guides, your decision becomes visionary!”

 An old quote by an Indian philosopher resonates quite well with the topic. It unfolds a carefully protected secret of making visionary decisions by leaders with the help of these poetic lines. It emphasizes on how the interaction between the mind and the gut becomes important for making a sustainable-futuristic decision. This essay intends to discuss about how such interactions occur and how to find out the right proportion of such interaction.

Firstly, let us start by understanding about what a visionary decision mean and why it is important. One can define vision simply as an imagination of how one wants their future to look like. When one decides to paint that imagination into reality, that decision becomes visionary. Such vision gives us a purpose to live, a target to achieve.

It can be an individual career choice where one wants to see oneself as ‘so-and-so’ in future. Or choice to contribute to a common cause to paint a shared future. Take the instance of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. From his career choice of becoming a lawyer to his historical contribution in drafting the constitution of India, all exemplified his visionary decisions.

These kinds of decisions require the interaction and intersection of intuition and logics to create such a magic!

Intuition – Logic Interface

          One can consider the intuition as the gut feeling of what is right or wrong. It is generally shaped by the experiences one had in their past and by their value system.

          When we say logics, one can call it the ability to reason any subject-matter, to analyse it and derive conclusions out of it. This is generally shaped by one's knowledge on that subject-matter rather than their past-experience.

          While logics helps one to critically think and reason to see the feasibility of options, it is the intuition which will ultimately guide them to take the right path.

          Consider Indian freedom struggle. Mahatma Gandhi had various options for protesting British rule in 1920s. This period was also marked by world war elsewhere, rise in revolutionary activities within, and unrest of peasants & tribals in many parts of our country. Considering all these logical options carefully, he chose satyagraha and believed it as the right way to attain freedom even if it delays it. Though violence was perceived as faster option, his intuition made him realize Ahimsa (non-violence) as being sustainable in the long run, which proved to be correct. But intuition and logics also play a role in evolving the path to the vision. This is also demonstrated by one such instance where Gandhiji logically predicted that Britishers will retreat with suppression against the satyagrahis. Thus, he did not stop the Satyagrahis from resorting to violence for self-defence during Quit India Movement. That is why, in his 11-point demand earlier, he wanted to restore firearms license for Indians for self-defence. This is how he demonstrated a successful logics-intuition interface for a visionary decision-making.

          There are also other instances where the logics and intuition had successful collaborations. Amul was one of the most famous cases considering the imprint it left on our country and beyond. The decision of Amul of starting a cooperative movement and then spearheading the White revolution in India, was a perfect union of vision and data-driven planning supported by intuition. Later it became so impactful that even countries like Kenya tried to replicate its model.

          These instances not only prove that logics-intuition collaboration help at making the right choices at long term, but also on how much impact it leaves behind.

          While thinking about this collaboration, one may wonder what would happen if logics overtake intuition in a decision making. Will the decision still be visionary?

          Take the example of making a policy. If government is fully data driven, it might come up with an ideal policy which might not have a connect with the ground reality. During the 2004 Tsunami, the logical disaster management practices failed while the local people’s intuition saved them from the disaster. So, government learned from this to integrate local people’s knowledge into the disaster management policy after that.

          Another issue of too much leaning into logics is that it can lead to sacrificing of values. Imagine what would happen if the government privatizes the police duty in the name of bringing logistical efficiency. This will not only compromise public safety but also will make justice inaccessible to those with no purchasing power. This makes the decision making a ruinary rather than visionary!

 But it is not fair to say such ruinary occurs only if logics overtake intuition in decision making. It may also happen if the coin is flipped. Thus, we also need to understand the flip side of the coin i.e. case for intuition over logics.

If intuition overtakes logics……

          This scenario is not something new in the history of India. During the 1970s and 80s, the government of India was pumping its money into sick public sector units (PSUs), hoping it would get revived someday. They did not stop this intuition-driven approach despite data showing poor performance of those state-run PSUs. Such an action added with other external (global) factors finally led India into severe BOP crisis by the end of 1980s. Thus, when logics questions the intuition, it is wise to re-evaluate the course of action.

It not only leads to such irrational decisions, but believing in pure intuition also will lead to loss of confidence among the followers, thus losing the support to achieve such a visionary goal. It is like a captain sailing the ship to hunt the treasure without a map but asking the crew to believe in his intuition about this unknown place. Over the time, the crew will lose confidence as intuition won't guarantee the path to the treasure like the map does. At least map helps to make the crew confident of their destination in this unknown place. That is why we need to find a right balance between the data and the experience to set the sail right!

Intuition – Logics Balance

          One has to be trained to see a situation without bias and emotions. This helps the mind to see the facts objectively in the options available. Here is where the modern science comes into play where data science and artificial intelligence gives a helping hand. It helps to interpret the statistics and data with minimal emotional hook, thus bringing objectivity.

After that, besides the objectivity, the choice activity needs to be guided by one's gut feelings. The gut feelings or the intuition is trained with ethical values and past experiences. So, it will help to make ethically justifiable decisions at the right time. A good decision that is ill-timed is equal to a worse decision. Example of one such decision was LPG reforms-equivalent that broke the Soviet Union in 1990s. But similar reforms were majorly successful in India because of its political timings and the socio-economic backdrop which led to its acceptance.

Another way to attain such balance is to learn from the past. India came up with nuclear deterrence after it encountered various wars during 1960s and 70s despite being a peace-loving country. This inspired it to make such a visionary decision of becoming a nuclear power not to harm the enemy, but to protect its citizens as a matter of self-defence.

Though vision can be called the imagination of the future, to make it a reality one needs to take a firm decision. This decision must be taken at the intersection of logics and intuition with their right proportion. Over-intuition may lead to irrationality while too much logic forgets the human factor. Thus, a balance between both needs to be fostered to truly bring the vision into limelight, making it shine. Let us knit our visionary fabric Viksit Bharat with the threads of logics and intuition!

Let us foster the vision of democracy and discuss! Comment your thoughts below.