Develop intuitive powers, tells top Tata executive

Develop intuitive powers, tells top Tata executive
Tuesday,21 August 2007 18:15 hrs IST /MALAYALA MANORAMA English edition

New Delhi: Intuition, along with traditional tools like logic and analyses, plays an equal role in the management of today's corporations that are increasingly becoming global in outlook, a top Tata Sons executive said Tuesday.

"Logic and analysis are very important to leadership not making mistakes," R. Gopalakrishnan, executive director of Tata Sons, who played a key role in the mega acquisitions of the group, said in a lecture here.

"But they have limitations. Intuition is a powerful outlay, after the powers of logic have been exhausted," he said in the lecture on "The Manager's Dilemma: Analysis vs Intuition" at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci).

Gopalakrishnan, who has also authored a book on corporate management titled "The Case of the Bonsai Manager", also emphasised that it is intuition that will play a key role in the success of smaller firms in a world ruled by conglomerates.

Stating that his book deals with a key leadership issue - on what the balance between logic and intuition is - Gopalakrishnan said, "The world of business is a world of practicality."

He said that in today's world, sticking to only analysis before taking any strategic decision would not lessen chances of mistakes on the part of the leader.

"Continuous analysis can lead to paralysis. It is here that intuition plays an important part."

He, however, added, "Intuition is not a substitute to analysis. It is a companion to analysis."

Elaborating, he said, "Knowledge is 'what you know you know'. Intuition is 'what you don't know you know'. A combination of both is wisdom."

So, how can a person be intuitive?

"If we cannot hear beyond our hearing range, see beyond our visual range or feel beyond our immediate environment, we cannot be intuitive," said Gopalakrishnan.

In a lighter vein, he said that analysis and intuition are as opposite to each other as corporate governance and sex.

"Everybody practises sex but does not talk about it. Everybody talks about corporate governance but nobody practises it."

Stating that analysis can lead one into thinking only on a linear path, he said, "It is intuition, that sudden 'aha' moment of life, that will help a manager reduce mistakes."

To emphasise his point, he referred to the examples of Archimedes and his bathtub moment and the apple falling on Isaac Newton's head.

Giving a powerpoint presentation, he said that intuition can be developed by immersion and contemplation. This should be followed by filling what he called the 'brain's remote implicit memory' or BRIM with emotion-rich stories.

"Your first day in school, your first job or the day your girlfriend rejected you. It can be anything - positive or negative. But it should be emotion-rich," he said.

And then sensing at the edge of the spectrum is the final stage of the process of developing intuitive powers.

"Management schools teach you not to be emotional. I say, 'Be emotional'," the Tata Sons executive director said.

Earlier, welcoming the gathering, Ficci vice-president Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that Gopalakrishnan's views are significant in today's world of conglomerates.

"Big conglomerates are very risk averse. This throws up huge opportunities for new entrepreneurs. But these opportunities can be successfully exploited only when approached with a good gut feeling after being properly analysed," he said.