Second Crack – The Leadership Podcast (Episode 37)

This transcript is AI-generated and may contain typos and errors.

[00:00] Charlotte: To me, intuition and leadership, it's something that all great leaders have, and it's something that all great leaders follow. Because it's about following our true selves, our natural state, what feels best for us, and trusting that, again, that's best for my employees, it's best for me, it's best for my customers. And moving forward with that trust. 

And it's a muscle that needs to be flexed. You know, you can have one intuitive hit and follow it and it'll be awesome, but that doesn't mean that, I mean, maybe it will, that would be great if then you start following your intuition a hundred percent of the time, but, but probably not, you know, it's, it's something that we need to be mindful of.

And returning to the beginning of the call, asking that question that Martin asked, how can I follow my intuition more? And truly asking and pausing and waiting for a response.

 And then having fun with whatever comes through. 

[01:29] Gerrit: Dear listeners, welcome to a brand new episode of Second Crack, The Leadership Podcast. If you are new to the show, this is where we explore everyday leadership dilemmas and paradoxes, and where we invite you to self reflect. I am Gerrit Pelzer, I work as an executive coach, and I bring to my coaching a combination of Western science and Asian wisdom. Joining me today, as always, is my dear friend and business partner, Martin Aldergard. Martin specializes in driving change and transformation within organizations. And what we both have in common is that we always put people at the center of our work. Hi, Martin, how are you doing today?

[02:12] Martin: I'm fine, Gerrit, and nice to meet you again for our monthly conversation. Today, we're going to talk about intuition and what role does intuition play in leadership? And, you as an engineer, as a consultant, I always rely on numbers and logical thinking. How can I use and trust intuition to make decisions, and in my role as a leader?

[02:43] Gerrit: Yes, and we will have some answers for you today, Martin, and everybody else who's listening from a true expert. And it's a bit of a funny story. Our last guest, Enrico Cañal Bruland mentioned, we spoke with him briefly about intuition in the context of leadership, and he said, you know, I know an expert on this, and we are glad to have her on the show today. A warm welcome to you as well, Dr. Charlotte Tamason.

[03:13] Charlotte: Thank you. Thank you, Gerrit. Thanks, Martin. It's lovely to be here.

[03:18] Gerrit: Charlotte, when I asked you how you would like to be introduced, you said, ah, just introduce me as an intuition coach. What is that? Could you explain to our listeners what an intuition coach is and does, and maybe tell us a little bit more about yourself?

[03:37] Charlotte: Yes, I'd be glad to. To me, an intuition coach is someone that helps you reconnect with your inner guidance. And this is going to bring clarity, which is going to save time. It's going to reduce stress. It's going to help you feel more aligned in both work and also your personal life. Yeah, and I do this with individuals, and I also do this with workplaces.

[04:10] Gerrit: And when I just hear you, When I hear what you said, you said it's about reconnecting with your inner guidance. And I think you role model this, or it is expressed through your calm. I mean, just listening to you, you seem to be truly connected to your inner self, very calm. And, uh, would, would you say that has to do with each other?

Is that connected? This calm that you exhibit?

[04:40] Charlotte: Well first, thank you, and yes, absolutely. And intuition is such a beautiful thing, it's going to come in differently for each of us. So I can give you an example. For me, it comes through as a big wave of calm. For my daughter, it comes through as a piercing wisdom. For my son, it comes through as unbridled joy. And for each and every person, you know, when we connect within, we allow that true authentic self to shine through. And that's going to come through differently for each. people, or for each person rather, um, yet there are characteristics that are going to be similar to everyone. So for example, the calm, the wisdom, the joy, those are all going to be, you know, sort of foundational characteristics of connecting with intuition.

[05:41] Martin: Yet for certain people, different ones are going to come out, more strongly. So what, is intuition in, your viewpoint? I'm thinking of gut feeling or can you, help me to understand what is it?

[05:59] Charlotte: Intuition, to me, is that inner guidance that always knows and wants what's best for us. And some people do better thinking of this actually as higher guidance. Some people are going to think of it better as inner guidance, but it's that wisdom that is always trying to set us on the path that's best for us.

And you mentioned gut feeling. Intuition can definitely come in as a gut feeling. That's a way that it's commonly described. It can also come in as words, or some people describe it as an inner voice, for example. Other people's intuition will actually be more visual, so it can come in as visions or as dreams, maybe even as lights or as colours. it's really about the senses, but more about that sixth sense, if you will, because it's not like we're tapping into the physical world. We're tapping into just pure wisdom, pure wisdom that we all have access to and that, believe it or not, can help you run your business.

[07:17] Martin: When you talk about intuition in the place of business and in the business, everything is so externally driven. So how can intuition take a place in business? How can it be part of it?

[07:30] Charlotte: Hmm. Yeah. Well, business is very external. We often look for external leads and this and that, things to follow. And in this day and age, with so much noise, so much information, so much data, And data that can really tell you yes or no, yes and no, to, to most of our questions. Going inward is the best choice that we have.

And it's the best choice because it helps set our mind at ease and because it allows us to make decisions that are aligned with us. And an aligned decision is going to be not only best for me, but best for everyone on my team and best for my customers.

[08:24] Gerrit: When I'm listening to you, what comes to mind when I also look back at my former corporate career, we like to think about leadership and business, that everything needs to be rational. And my experience is that people look at intuition or gut feeling as something rather irrational. I feel strongly reminded of a movie I once saw, a cop movie, right?

And the detective pursues something, but then is questioned by the captain. Why are you doing this? And he says, well, I'm following a hunch. We don't need a hunch here. What we need is evidence. And that is what I find a lot in business and leadership. We look at the numbers. We look at the logic, we analyze, and, and, and, and then we think that based on the numbers we can make a decision. However, at the same time, I think in the cop movie, the detective with the hunch is always right in the end. And I think we can bring more of this also into leadership.

[09:35] Charlotte: Absolutely. And I'm going to share one of my favorite quotes with you right now from Albert Einstein, where he said, the intuitive mind is a sacred gift. And the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

It's absolutely true. And also when we think about some of our great leaders, they are acting on hunches. Do you think Steve Jobs operated on his rational mind alone? You know, or, um, Elon Musk, he's, he's not a purely rational mind operator, whether you agree with everything he does or not. But, uh, what I'm trying to say is to get the innovation, to get, I mean, really into that flow state and productivity, intuition is key.

[10:37] Martin: And there is so much over analysis and there's so, so much bureaucracy and so much time wasted in organizations, producing data, producing reports, endless meetings with PowerPoint after PowerPoint. And when are the good decisions made? I don't think they are made based on PowerPoints and meetings. my gut feeling is that intuition plays a major part in critical decision making, whether we think that is good or not, whether we believe that is good or not.

[11:16] Charlotte: And I'm really curious then as a leader, how can I reconnect? How can I tap into my intuition more? You, you mentioned before there is so much noise. So I'm sensing it's hard to tap into intuition. Well, Martin, you just did the most important thing that's happened to your intuition, and that is simply asking the question. How can I better tap into my intuition right now? And then you pause. You take a breath. You feel into your body.

And you see what insights arise.

And you might be met with a busy mind. And perhaps that's where you're being led to go first, is to just watch that. Become a little bit friendly with that. Let some of those thoughts go and ask again.

[12:22] Martin: This, this practice is, is really hard,

[12:29] Charlotte: Yes. Absolutely. 

[12:34] Martin: and then also to, to really Listen to what I'm hearing. You mentioning this inner voice, you also said it could be in colors, in words, in gut feeling, but in whatever way something talks to you, it's really hard. And how can I, how can I trust what I'm hearing, what I'm sensing?

[13:03] Gerrit: I have a thought on this and I don't know if Charlotte will agree. I think that children are naturally more intuitive and then are conditioned in our society that They tend to lose this connection with their intuition over time, because especially in Western societies, where we focus so much on, maybe I could say the left brain hemisphere, as I said earlier, analysis, logic, rational decision making. And I was in an environment, I studied chemistry, I worked in the chemical industry and manufacturing. There was very little room for emotions and intuition. There was a lot of engineering stuff that Martin would have loved in his former life as well. And I had my first reconnection with intuition as far as I recorded when I became a coach. And it was one of my very first coaching assignments a while ago, where I spoke with a new potential client. And I was quite nervous because I was a very junior coach at that time. And I know he was inviting also all the other hotshot coaches that I had highest respect for. And we were in the interview and the interview was very matter of fact. until at one point in time he asked me a question and I had this gut feeling coming up that I did not want to answer this question exactly but say something else that came up for me in this moment and I took a risk there but from there onwards the conversation changed and ultimately he chose me as his coach.

Now I don't know if this was only because of my gut feeling response but The point that I actually want to make, that was then one of the first moments in my, what should I say, adult life, where I realized, hey, I'm reconnecting here with my intuition. And since it worked out well in this case, coming back to Martin's question, then I learned to trust my intuition more. And I think then, once you rediscover this voice, and you listen to it, and then you carefully follow it, and you observe what is the outcome, and when you realize, ah, the outcome is actually quite okay, or very good, then I think you have motivation to listen to it more, and it will naturally develop more. I don't know what your take or experience is.

[15:43] Charlotte: I agree a hundred percent. The only thing I could add to it is something that I recommend often and that's to take what you're saying and turn it into a bit of a game. You know, oh, I just heard this. It makes me feel a little scared, but what happens if I follow it? Or what happens if I don't? Maybe even, you know, write down like a, the intuitive guidance you got and the outcomes you got from following it.

And just kind of play, play detective, play scientist.

[16:21] Martin: In, in our preparation conversation before this recording, you mentioned about a client you had in a startup company, and it helped me to understand the benefits or the need of intuition in business. Do you remember, could, could you share this short example? Because I think it can really, uh, illustrate well,

[16:47] Charlotte: Yeah, absolutely. So we were sitting at a table and they asked me, how can we apply intuition to what we're doing right now? And I said, well, tell me something that's coming up. What do you need clarity on? And they thought for a minute and they said, Oh, this project, we don't know what to do with this project.

Do we move forward? Do we kill it? You know, we've put a lot into it already. We don't really know where to go. We've, uh, What should we do with this? And everybody said, okay, let's see. And I just guided them on a, on a visualization where, you know, you imagine what happens if we go through with it, okay, then we come back and we imagine what happens if we kill it.

And then we imagine what happens if we go on a third path and, you know, everybody's calmly sitting there afterwards, very pensive, and they asked, the tech engineer in charge of the project, they said, what came up for you? And he said, we move forward with a project, but not right now. He said, we need to focus on these two other areas first to get clear, to get our foundation set.

And once those are in place and running smoothly, we can move forward with this. And the, the whole table just said, yes, you know, I got a yes move forward with it, but I absolutely love. How it came through like this. And this was 10 minutes and it probably saved months of stress and burden and wondering and overwork for, for the IT department.

[18:28] Gerrit: It's, it's a wonderful example. And I compare this when this rational side of, of people in corporations, they want to have all the figures, all the data. And I recently read something about making a 10 year plan and I had to smile at it because I'm, you know, you can't really predict what is going to happen tomorrow.

How can you make a plan for the next 10 years. And I think that is this illusion that if we only have enough data, if we only have enough whatever artificial intelligence and prediction models, then we can predict everything exactly. And even though if you look at it, everybody should see right through it and say, that's completely ridiculous.

But when instead you say, well, then let's work on our intuition, then people will laugh at it even more. However, having said this, in my experience, the best leaders are indeed those who trust their intuition, who know already, I can't get all the data, even if I could, I could still not make this decision.

And, uh, so they know, um, this process doesn't help. So I go with my intuition. And often these people bring again this calm, this wisdom that nobody challenges their decision. Nobody will say, Oh, we can't follow your hunch. very 

[19:58] Charlotte: It brings up this question for me, it's a rhetorical question of how much time and energy and stress gets poured into making those reports and trying to justify these decisions that would be better off made intuitively in the first place. That's so much money and energy.

[20:26] Martin: And I wanted to build on Gerrit, and then you built on a very interesting point, Charlotte. I think we really need to review and talk more openly in leadership teams and inside organizations the decision making process. Because if we talk about it, what might be taboo, saying, you know, we can't make multi million dollar decisions on gut feeling, the taboo to speak about it, how do we bring intuition into our decision making process and make it more visible and make it so that we can collaborate and share with each other, rather than trying to hide it. And I'm, I'm also thinking another perspective. 

What are the risks of being too fast? Using too much of my intuition?

[21:27] Charlotte: Can't think of a lot of risks if you balance it correctly or if you just, you're open to balance it. You know, you take the numbers, you take the measurable things in as well, and you continue to trust. And, you know, like any good leader, even if things are based on numbers, you don't often walk in and say, this is the way we're going to do it. Boom. You know, you, you talk to people, you get their input, and you can also trust other people to feel into these things and, and invite them and say, Hey. Intuitively, I know where I want this to go. I want you guys to come along on this journey with me, you know, let's, let's take a minute and follow this intuitive exercise and, and feel into it and see if we can all come together on this because that, that's again going to take 10 or 15 minutes.

You know, and maybe a little bit longer if people want to share more of their own insights. And then you still have the, the team with you.

[22:44] Martin: So the patience, the involvement is the key. And of course, then that is what every good leader should do anyway.

[22:55] Gerrit: I could still imagine that when you approach corporations, that there is some skepticism, some hesitation, some resistance, because they are so disconnected from intuition. And I was wondering how do you approach organizations with that? And I, maybe I can share my own experience because I also talk a lot with people, for instance, about emotions say, you know, there's, there's no room for emotions in the workplace.

And an approach that I often use is then, how should I say, to speak their language and use a science based approach. And Stephen Porges, I think he coined the term polyvagal theory, and there is now scientific evidence that our brain is not only communicating top down, like the brain decides everything and then the rest of the body just executes, no, it's also that the brain receives a lot of information from the rest of the body. We know, for instance, that the gut that we were referring to so often today contains a lot of neurons. The heart contains neurons. In the rest of the body, there's a lot of wisdom and the brain will also then pick up what's going on in my body right now and then makes a decision. And some people might say, well, yeah, that is at least part of intuition. Or when I think about, um, Let's say a good example is, um, alloparenting, where at least in the past, maybe in some societies still today, children were not only raised by their biological parents, but maybe by the whole group or the whole tribe. And then there is this moment you look at a person and you ask, Can I trust this person?

Can I hand my child over to this person? And there's a lot of wisdom in that as well. So that was a bit of my take, maybe using, uh, apart from the last example of history, but using biology to explain people that there is, if you wish, biological evidence that intuition makes sense. So back to my original question, Charlotte, how do you approach organizations with this?

How, how do they react? Or do you only work with people who already know they want to develop more intuition and then they approach you and you have a relatively easy entry?

[25:34] Charlotte: Yeah, so mostly I work with people, at least someone on the team making decisions who wants to bring more intuition into the workplace. You know, they, they feel the value. They understand that this is the way forward and then when it comes down to getting everyone actually there in a group there's often going to be the, the devil's advocate, right?

The, Oh, but what about this? But what about, what if my intuition has led me into something wrong? And what we do there is we sort of debunk myths and really clearly define what intuition is and what it isn't, because I think people have a broad range of understanding. of what intuition is to them. So for me, it's, it's this inner wisdom or it's this higher wisdom.

And the way that you know, that it's speaking to you is it's going to be that very first thing that comes in within the first three seconds. And any thought that comes after that is going to be the conditioning or things that's, You know, we've, we've been trained, we've seen that have been passed down to us from, from our parents, from our caregivers.

So that's intuition, that boom. And, and recognizing sometimes, for example, I've had people say, well, you know, let's talk about first impressions of people. Sometimes, what if somebody looks like an ex boyfriend or an ex girlfriend, and that was a terrible relationship. And again, I say, okay, so before you focus on what they look like, what was the gut reaction?

Or, okay, you see the face, maybe it triggered something, and then as you speak, right away, is it something you feel like, I want to move forward with this? Because you know, your body knows. I often do an exercise, The first time I meet with people where we do an intuitive yes or no. And actually, I'm happy to do it here if you'd like.

But basically we imagine a scenario that we don't want to happen. And then we ask our intuition, is this, is this something that's best for us? And we do the same thing then with, you know, this beautiful, expansive situation, is this something that's best for us? And then you can viscerally feel in your body, What that intuitive no and what that intuitive yes feels like.

[28:28] Martin: I hear so many good things here, and what I'm taking away from this part was this short moment of time. You mentioned this three seconds, right? Because after that, my brain is already starting to process and filling in what it should be or, or what I should feel and. I connect in this what, what Gerrit always says about our brains are, not rational. They are rationalizing. And I think this is where we need to be so observant as leaders. I'm connecting this with some exercises that we sometimes do, in leadership meetings, we're using painting or Lego building or something that is not based on speaking or creating bullet points on a flip chart. And I'm sensing that that is a way to also tap into intuition, something that is unspoken, that is not processed through our logical brain.

[29:31] Charlotte: Yeah. The, the building, the creating, it's intuition. When we're in touch with our intuition, we're in touch with our creativity. Where we're in that flow state, things are moving. And it's the same thing to sort of bypass the rational mind that's trying to would or should us into something we, we've learned before.

[29:59] Martin: Yeah, it, it's this, these tools or these exercises to distract our logical brain from not taking over the conversation, so to say.

[30:07] Gerrit: Charlotte, loved the example that you gave before when you work with, with teams or corporations. And you started by saying we need to debunk a number of myths and that made me curious. What are the most common myths you hear about intuition?

[30:27] Charlotte: Oh, that's a good question. You know, a lot of the questions are Can I really trust it? Or, you know, people are, as soon as we talk about that, you can always trust it, it seems like a lot of people go back into this, how can I prove this wrong? You know, like how, how can my logical mind prove that this isn't true to justify how I've been doing things for so many years?

[30:59] Gerrit: Yes, yes.

[31:02] Charlotte: It comes up in different ways. It comes up in terms of, okay, but what about this time that I felt like I was following a hunch and it didn't work out, I didn't get the sale, or, you know, that was a relationship, like a partnership, business partnership that crumbled or whatever it may be. And what I say to that is, is there a silver lining there?

Are you now happy that you're no longer working with that partnership that crumbled? Or was there a deeper learning in what you experienced through this? You know, a lot of times our intuition, it takes us towards, it always eventually takes us towards what's brighter and more expansive and feeling lighter and best for us.

And sometimes along the way Especially if we're missing little pieces, it's going to take us someplace where life is going to take us to someplace that, uh, that doesn't feel so nice. It's going to teach us a lesson that we can then use to move forward on this path. I 

don't know. Did, did that sit, did that hit with you or was that too abstract?

[32:21] Gerrit: no, not at all for me. What I was about to say is that the silence, from Martin and my end, is probably that: yeah, there's so much wisdom in that, there's not much more to say, I think. And I wonder what else we should cover today, when we talk about intuition in the context of leadership.

[32:46] Charlotte: To me, intuition and leadership, it's something that all great leaders have, and it's something that all great leaders follow. Because it's about following our true selves, our natural state, what feels best for us, and trusting that, again, that's best for my employees, it's best for me, it's best for my customers.

And moving forward with that trust. And it's a muscle that needs to be flexed. You know, you can have one intuitive hit and follow it and it'll be awesome, but that doesn't mean that, I mean, maybe it will, that would be great. If then you start following your intuition a hundred percent of the time, but, but probably not, you know, it's, it's something that we need to be mindful of.

And returning to the beginning of the call, asking that question that Martin asked, how can I follow my intuition more? And truly asking and pausing and waiting for a response.

And then having fun with whatever comes through.

[34:09] Martin: I think that this, this last piece is, is to me, the, the key point, because then that shows the calmness, the relaxation, the enjoyment, and that is what we need to tap into. And I think if that would be the goal of, trying to discover my intuition, learning to trust it more, then I feel the joy from it. I think then I'm definitely on the right path.

[34:37] Gerrit: Yeah, my, my intuition says, I think we could go on with this conversation for the rest of the day and it would still be interesting. The other part of the intuition Charlotte, I think these were perfect closing remarks. And I wonder if we should go into, uh, the reflection questions for our listeners.

Yeah, I have a couple. One is a question that I invite everyone to ask right now that's listening, and that is, How can I follow my intuition more today? And we'd start with that. Just today. And have fun with that. And the other question That I'd like to ask, you know, when we're on this path and we're following intuition and shit happens, because that's just a part of life, is what can I learn from this?

[35:52] Charlotte: You know, whether we're following our intuition or not, just taking that moment to say, what can I learn from this? And again, pausing and reflecting.

[36:05] Martin: this is, this is resonating with me and is similar to the question I had. I was thinking about when I feel a disconnect between my logical reasoning and My intuition and just imagining these two different sides and not making it a problem, but actually looking at it as a learning point, not as a demand to having to select two different roads, but actually trying to bring those two together.

I might still choose, so to say, my logical reasoning, the musts or the should. But I can still recognize in my gut feeling, what does it tell me? And perhaps later when the timing is right, then I will act more on my intuition.

[36:56] Gerrit: Wonderful. Charlotte. It was a wonderful discussion. I enjoyed it very much. Thanks a lot for being our guest today. If people have listened and I say, wow, you know, this is really interesting. I would also like to learn more about intuition, become better at leading with intuition. Who should eventually get in touch with you and what would be the best way for them to do that?

[37:25] Charlotte: Well, I would say that anyone whose curiosity or interest was piqued by this conversation should contact me. I'm happy just to have a chat and see what we can do together, whether that's for an individual or it's for a workplace. You can contact me personally, charr at healthbyintuition. com. You can go over to my website, www.

healthbyintuition. com. And I believe you'll have the links below, right? In the 

podcast 

[38:00] Gerrit: put links. Yes, exactly. That's what we will certainly do so that this doesn't get lost.

[38:07] Charlotte: Mm hmm. Amazing. Anyone and everyone is welcome.

[38:11] Gerrit: Great. Martin, it was also wonderful recording with you again today, like every month. Thank you so much.

[38:19] Martin: Thank you, Gerrit. Thank you, Charlotte.

[38:22] Gerrit: And this concludes, this concludes today's episode. If you like what we do, please subscribe to Second Crack on your favorite podcast platform. It would also be wonderful if you could recommend our podcast to a friend. And of course, we would love it if you could leave a positive comment or rating. For more insights about our work, visit our website at secondcrackleadership.com. That's all in one word. And we are also curious to receive your feedback, questions and comments. Feel free to reach out to us at hello at secondcrackleadership. com. 
Bye for now.