Intelligence is not Enough

A few weeks ago, an article appeared about the fact that high intelligence does not protect one from falling for conspiracy theories. In fact, the opposite can be true:

• Great eloquence not only helps to convince others, but also oneself.
• If you are clever enough, you can always find a way to interpret statements in such a way that they fit into your own thought system.
• Those who are intelligent tend to overestimate themselves and perceive themselves as superior - not a good basis for being lectured by supposed fools...

All these "symptoms" will, by the way, be familiar to certain employees of certain superiors...never mind, back to the topic.

Scientific evidence suggests that opinions are formed on the basis of affective reactions. Once these opinions are made, the intellect helps immensely to sustain and defend them. Finally, at a certain point, the sunk cost bias factor kicks in. The corresponding thought process is: "I've already put so much into defending this opinion, now I can't change it anymore." Emotionally understandable, factually nonsense, of course.

So, in the case of unalterable opinions, it's a complete waste of time to look for intellectual arguments – we're seeing enough of that at the moment. If anything has a chance, it is emotional experiences that have the power to shake well-stabilised structures.

Admittedly, the chances are not rosy there either, but if you want to win the lottery, you don't play Halma, do you?

Once again we see that the mantra "let's be rational", so widespread in the business world, falls short. To frantically fade out affective aspects of opinion-forming and decision-making has disastrous consequences: they then simply retreat underground and act from there in a guerrilla-like way, with undiminished strength. And guerrilla warfare is a nightmare: you never know when something will hit you that you didn't even see coming.

The opposite is much more useful: to be particularly attentive to your own affective reactions. Only then do you have the chance to perceive them in a differentiated way, to keep one foot in the gap between affect and action and to check what this affective reaction says about the subject and what it says about you. Typically, both parts are represented: as experience in an area increases, that experience sediments into the intuitive ground and from there transports extremely useful tacit knowledge. So, if you learn to distinguish one from the other, you can strike gold.

In the (inflationary) discussion about complexity and appropriate forms of work and decision-making in complex environments, it is generally agreed that it is hopeless to try to penetrate complexity analytically. Through the channel of this insight, intuitive, analogue and even artistic approaches to problem identification and decision-making are slowly trickling into the collection of methods used by managers.

Good thing.

Switch on the brain? Yes, of course. Listen to your gut feeling? Absolutely, and preferably before the autopilot takes over.