Startups and Entrepreneurship

Athletes call it instinct. Hipsters know it as vibes. Scientists claim it’s intuition. You and I probably refer to it as a gut feeling. And, the more spiritual among us might think of it as a sixth sense.

In business, a lot of times we are taught that every decision we make must be data-driven but it turns out some of the world’s top minds rely just as much on feelings as they do on hard facts…

When your intuition can make the world a better place

Adam Werbach was the Sierra Club’s golden boy.

He grew up in Los Angeles where, as a 7-year-old, he would check Smog reports before his morning T-ball practices. A morning habit fueled by an enormous love for the environment and a vision for a greener future.

At the age of twenty-three, Werbach became the youngest president in Sierra Club history — one of the leading environmental organizations in the United States that promotes climate solutions and conservation.

He hit the ground running and immediately began harnessing his youthful energy, smarts and perhaps a bit of intuition to drastically change the way the club operated.

The young activist was loved far and wide and had accumulated a large following… that is until he made a business decision that nobody saw coming.

Adam Werbach decided to take a consulting gig at nonother than… Walmart… the organization that many conservationists believe embodies everything the Sierra Club stands against.

Suddenly, Werbach went from touring the country and giving 200 speeches a year in front of raving supporters to not being able to speak in public without private security.

In an interview with Fast Company, Werbach shared:

“I attended this event and someone came up to me and said ‘I wouldn’t feel safe if I were you. People have gotten hurt.’

However, the death threats were only a portion of the blows Werbach faced in his decision to go from green to blue.

His friends and colleagues pleaded that he change his mind and to this day, some of them refuse to talk to him.

Two activists even went on to write an open letter about the former Sierra Club president, The Death of Integrity: In Working With Wal-Mart, Activist Adam Werbach Is Abandoning His Principles.

Something that, if you are Werbach, probably wasn’t the most joyous thing to read with your morning cup of coffee.

However, fast-forward through over a decade’s worth of backlash, Werbach is beginning to see that his controversial decision to join Walmart was the right one.

Since taking the consulting gig at Walmart, Werbach has helped 40% of the company’s employees embrace sustainable practices.

He has been instrumental in not just lessening Walmart’s impact on the environment but improving the quality of life of its workers — one of Werbach’s movements has helped 12,000 Walmart employees quit smoking.

Besides spear-heading many of Walmart’s sustainability initiatives, Werbach is now working with large brands like Proctor & Gamble, General Mills & Sony BMG to do the same.

He argues that his decision to leave the Sierra Club and join Walmart has given him a much larger platform to spread awareness about sustainability and environmental conservation.

Could you pass the intuition?

Sonia Choquette is a globally celebrated author and coach that works with executives on harnessing their intuition to make better business decisions.

She argues that by using intellect only and avoiding your innate wisdom, you are keeping yourself from the most valuable insights.

However, even Choquette warns that intuition shouldn’t be followed blindly and is much more effective if an individual has deep insight and experience in the particular industry they’re making a decision in.

In the Journal of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, a study was published by researches at Boston College, Rice University and George Mason University that found:

Intuition is effective when making a decision in an area where the decision maker has in-depth knowledge.

“Intuition is like nitroglycerine — it is best used only in certain circumstances.”

read the unedited, original and complete (and beautifully written ) article at https://medium.com/swlh/entrepreneurial-sixth-sense-how-intuition-drives-stronger-decision-making-fc906624641c