Unlikely Resources for Successful Innovation

Part 2 of 4 – What I recommend when people ask me

The first book I always recommend is Strategic Intuition. It was written in 2007, by Columbia University lecturer William Duggan, and is one of the best books on innovation I’ve ever encountered. Duggan was researching the “flashes of insight” that lead to breakthroughs, which led him to examine the role of intuition. He defines three types of intuition: Ordinary intuition; Expert intuition; and Strategic Intuition.

Ordinary Intuition

Duggan defines what he calls Ordinary Intuition as a “vague hunch or gut instinct”. This type of intuition comes to all of us many times a day. Duggan describes it as emotion: feeling as opposed to thinking. It’s based on our how our experiences over the course of our lifetimes have made us feel, and our thoughts are colored by these feelings.

Expert Intuition

Duggan then describes the snap judgments that he calls Expert Intuition, as the opposite of Ordinary Intuition. This type of intuition was popularized in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink, which describes a form of rapid thinking that enables an expert to jump to a conclusion when they recognize something familiar. I have also heard colleagues refer to this type of thinking as experiential know-how or “Professional Magic.” The more experienced we are in a specific field, the more we develop our expert intuition. “It’s always fast, and only works in familiar situations,” says Duggan.

Strategic Intuition

As the topic of Duggan’s book, Duggan defines Strategic Intuition as different from both Ordinary and Expert Intuition. As opposed to Ordinary Intuition, it’s thinking, not feeling. As opposed to Expert Intuition, it’s slow, not fast. It’s the foundation of the flashes of insight that lead us to the right conclusions, but it’s highly informed and thoughtfully considered.

Let’s look at the definition of an Idea to see how this foundation informs our understanding of how it informs our work.

Idea Dictionary definition: A purpose… indicating a course of action.

In order to define a strong purpose and course of action that can support a viable business that is ready to be scaled, we can’t just pull random thoughts out of the air. This means we can’t lean on Ordinary Intuition that is based on a vague hunch or gut instinct.

Developing the Idea is about doing something new, so we can’t lean on Expert Intuition that is honed with experience. We need to do a fair amount of work that combines thinking and feeling. It’s slow and deliberate, not fast. If we were to define an Idea in Duggan’s terms, it would draw on our ability to develop our Strategic Intuition.

Through this lens, it becomes easier to see why most accelerators and incubators are scaling Ideas that are not ready yet. Everyone experiences Ordinary Intuition, and I believe that almost everyone has experienced Expert Intuition. These two types of intuition are emphasized in our lives through our natural curiosity, our education, and our professional endeavors. Most innovation programs lean heavily on these common skills.

What we lack is opportunities to develop our Strategic Intuition. It requires an open, multidisciplinary perspective, and the patience to synthesize disparate information into a new, cohesive direction. In our culture, our education system is highly siloed, our professional structures are highly optimized, and we value doing over taking the time to think about whether what we’re doing is adding value. Yet developing a strong Idea requires well-honed Strategic Intuition skills.

Are you familiar with this book? I’d love to know what you think.