Intuition in Risk: Can you Trust Your Gut? Part 1

Uncertainty, ambiguity, confusion, time-pressure, and continuous and sometimes direct threats - the cross-cultural risk environment is a shockingly difficult one to be immersed in, trying to do ministry (often complex projects in challenging environments) as well as manage a household, cook entirely from scratch, and raise a family, all in a foreign language and culture far away from family, with the goal of furthering the Good News.

Many times I had this secret question, "What's a nice girl like me from a farm in Minnesota doing here having to evaluate what Islamic militants will potentially do next and how can I protect my children?" College and pre-field did not prepare me for this!

Usually, a few things need to be in order almost immediately when faced with this environment:  Remembering one's calling, tools to navigate emotions (see Chapter 10 in Facing Danger), and then a good night's sleep so that decisions are made with one's best energy in the risk environment.

While we need to always be listening for the Holy Spirit's leading, the role of intuition, "a gut feeling," should not be dismissed.  There are some specific aspects to when we should "lean in" to what our intuition is telling us, and other situations when it would be less wise.

Firstly, listening to one's intuition does not mean that we can ignore responsible Risk Assessment and Management (RAM), also discussed in Facing Danger and elsewhere. This step cannot/should not be ignored simply as a stewardship principle and to responsibly be able to answer the partners and stakeholders back home, as well as God Himself when we see Him. 

Agility in decision making is an important skill in Risk decision making, although we can learn the RAM method quite fast and do it on the back of a napkin in order to "see" more clearly through all the ambiguity, confusion, and uncertainty of risk as described at the beginning.

(Neal and I have strong opinions on the importance of Agility in conducting RAM, because some of the software out there provided for leaders in cross-cultural risk is too difficult and time-consuming.  RAM needs to be able to be done by any of the 445,000 cross-cultural workers world wide.  A housewife should be able to do RAM based on the probability analysis of the 4 factors and taking into account the 6 pages of stewardship outlined in the RAM Action Guide.)

 But sometimes, we've done RAM analysis, we are listening to the Holy Spirit, but we still don't feel we have clear leading.  Then what?

This is where our intuition, our gut feeling may come in. Sometimes, intuition may lead us to make decisions that contradict our deliberate reasoning, and it turns out we were right in that case. Gut feelings enable us to make the quick decision that needs to be made. 

The Gaze Heuristic is often used in both baseball and in aviation.  This "rule of thumb" is defined in baseball as:  "Fix your gaze on the ball, start running, and adjust your running speed so that the angle of gaze remains constant."  In popular wisdom in the field, this concept would be implemented in evaluating one threat over another.  One legitimate threat may attract our attention, but sometimes, our gut will tell us we should be watching another one more closely.  The example used for this is the example of U.S. policy discussions:

When U.S. Senator Russ Feingold noted that the Bush administration was clamping down on Iraq while Al-Qaeda was bubbling up elsewhere, he said, "I would ask you, Secretary Wolfowitz, are you sure we have our eye on the ball?"

This would be a good rule of thumb to apply to the current cancerous spread of Jihadi cells around the world, especially in light of the recent killing in New York by the Uzbek Isis sympathizer.

The gaze heuristic (also called a gaze "rule of thumb) simplifies complex decision making and ignores an amazing amount of information to focus only one aspect of a decision rationale. This unconscious thought, or intelligence is when we make a judgment:

1. That appears quickly in consciousness, 
2. whose underlying reasons we are not fully aware of, and
3. is strong enough to act upon. 

Gut feelings consist of simple rules of thumb which take advantage of the capacities of the brain. This approach to decision making helps when there isn't time to weigh all the pros and cons, and decisions need to be made in an extremely fluid environment (often the risk environment).  It also helps to simplify extremely complex problems and should not be dismissed, even by the most logical and trained folks in the group. But again, self-awareness is important here, especially so that one's emotions are taken into account.  Gut feelings are separate from our emotions, and are often unexplainable.

It's important to realize that making a gut decision is not usually acceptable in our agencies and even in a court of law. But everyone uses gut feelings, or "hunch," or just a "knowing," and this is clearly and scientifically proven to be different that the Holy Spirit's leading, because everyone has a gut feeling but not everyone has the Holy Spirit indwelling.

Part 2 - More on when to use Gut Feelings and when not to: Less is More:

This blog post based on Chapter 1 of "Gut feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious" by Gerd Gigerenzer.