Cookies help us display personalized product recommendations and ensure you have great shopping experience.

By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
  • Analytics
    AnalyticsShow More
    image fx (67)
    Improving LinkedIn Ad Strategies with Data Analytics
    9 Min Read
    big data and remote work
    Data Helps Speech-Language Pathologists Deliver Better Results
    6 Min Read
    data driven insights
    How Data-Driven Insights Are Addressing Gaps in Patient Communication and Equity
    8 Min Read
    pexels pavel danilyuk 8112119
    Data Analytics Is Revolutionizing Medical Credentialing
    8 Min Read
    data and seo
    Maximize SEO Success with Powerful Data Analytics Insights
    8 Min Read
  • Big Data
  • BI
  • Exclusive
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Software
Search
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Why Does “The Gut” Get All the Glory?
Share
Notification
Font ResizerAa
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
  • About
  • Help
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
SmartData Collective > Uncategorized > Why Does “The Gut” Get All the Glory?
Uncategorized

Why Does “The Gut” Get All the Glory?

PaulBarsch1
PaulBarsch1
5 Min Read
SHARE

gutDespite the logic of using data to complement or drive decision making, the business and mainstream press glorify intuition and “gut” decision making by managers of all stripes. Where does this leave “data-driven” approaches?

An article in Fast Company titled “Going for the Gut” details how even though we like our “heroes to crunch the numbers, we (also) like them to play their hunches.” Author Rob Walker laments that books like Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, Jack Welch’s Straight from the Gut and others, give gut decision making first billing over a “careful, rational, empirical” approach.

Walker asks, “Are the narratives of popular culture dominated by super rational heroes triumphing over seat of the pants, gut-trusting bad guys? Actually, it’s the opposite: from Captain Kirk to Indiana Jones to Rambo to Tony Soprano… we’re drawn to the character who follows the hunch and wins.”

And business press and mainstream media largely agree. After all, wouldn’t you rather read about the business executive who had the right hunch and made millions, as opposed to the quant-jock who crunched the numbers and came up with the winning combination?

More Read

Image
How GE Is Using Big Data to Drive Business Performance
Oracle Open World 2011 – Initial Thoughts
‘Business-IT alignment’ is dead… whatever it was
Register for 16 Dec webinar on what the CIO needs to know about developing secure code
A Mouse With His Head In The Clouds – Can Cloud Computing Help the Studios Help Themselves

Gut decision making is “in” and for lack of a …


gutDespite the logic of using data to complement or drive decision making, the business and mainstream press glorify intuition and “gut” decision making by managers of all stripes. Where does this leave “data-driven” approaches?

An article in Fast Company titled “Going for the Gut” details how even though we like our “heroes to crunch the numbers, we (also) like them to play their hunches.” Author Rob Walker laments that books like Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, Jack Welch’s Straight from the Gut and others, give gut decision making first billing over a “careful, rational, empirical” approach.

Walker asks, “Are the narratives of popular culture dominated by super rational heroes triumphing over seat of the pants, gut-trusting bad guys? Actually, it’s the opposite: from Captain Kirk to Indiana Jones to Rambo to Tony Soprano… we’re drawn to the character who follows the hunch and wins.”

And business press and mainstream media largely agree. After all, wouldn’t you rather read about the business executive who had the right hunch and made millions, as opposed to the quant-jock who crunched the numbers and came up with the winning combination?

Gut decision making is “in” and for lack of a better word—cool. Some senior executives have alluded there’s a mystique to gut decision making—those who have it have it, and those who don’t will never ascend the ivory tower of business success.

Case in point, Ralph Larsen, former CEO of a large consumer product goods company, states in a Harvard Business Review article, “When to Trust Your Gut,” that “Very often people will do a brilliant job up through the middle of management levels, where it’s very heavy quantitative in terms of decision making. But then they reach senior management, where the problems get more complex and ambiguous, and we discover that their judgment or intuition is not what it should be.”

I do agree with Mr. Larsen that data-driven decision-making works best when there is in fact “data” to analyze. Sometimes, senior-level decisions can be challenging because situations might be in uncharted territory—and there’s no past data, or too small a data set for analysis or prediction. That said, I’m not convinced that good judgment and intuition is the sole purview of senior management.

There is hope, however, that a data-driven approach can work just as good as gut thinking, and in most instances—complement it. Running a company and making decisions based on hard facts and numbers is something that I believe will never go out of style.


Link to original post

Share This Article
Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn
Share

Follow us on Facebook

Latest News

AI and data mining
What the Rise of AI Web Scrapers Means for Data Teams
Artificial Intelligence Big Data Exclusive
power supplies for ATX for data scientists
Why Data Scientists Should Care About SFX Power Supplies
Big Data Exclusive
AI for website optimization
Free Tools to Test Website Accessibility
Artificial Intelligence Exclusive
Generative AI models
Thinking Machines At Work: How Generative AI Models Are Redefining Business Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence Business Intelligence Exclusive Infographic Machine Learning

Stay Connected

1.2kFollowersLike
33.7kFollowersFollow
222FollowersPin

You Might also Like

Survey: technology investments boost odds of success

1 Min Read

Quality vs. Quantity

3 Min Read

Sun Tzu and the Art of Data Quality

6 Min Read

The Top Three hottest new majors according to Microsoft: data mining, business intelligence, web analytics

3 Min Read

SmartData Collective is one of the largest & trusted community covering technical content about Big Data, BI, Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT & more.

ai is improving the safety of cars
From Bolts to Bots: How AI Is Fortifying the Automotive Industry
Artificial Intelligence
ai chatbot
The Art of Conversation: Enhancing Chatbots with Advanced AI Prompts
Chatbots

Quick Link

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-25 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?