How many times have you seen someone's innate knowledge pave the way? Their lessons from past experience are on the mark. And yes, their intuition was right all along!

One marketing director at a Fortune 500 corporation recalls when his company brought in high-powered market analysts to study a market segment. After months of studies and a final hefty report, the consultants declared the market as dieing. They said it would be gone within five years! Ten years later, the market was still growing, just as the director's gut told him it would.

Why are gut feelings so often ignored?

• Those with the gut feelings are unable to explain the logic of their intuition and reasoning from experience.
• They fail to use "business-like" language in stating their case. "Our experience in these three cases has shown..." has a lot more influence than, "I know that won't work."
• "Insiders" might not have the polish and "communications packaging" of a consultant.
• Insiders might not have the time, the budget or the platform to state their case.

One sign that your intuition is not misguided is when your intuition tells you this is a good thing just about as often as a bad thing. Then you probably are indeed drawing on your innate and learned knowledge. Sorting it out is the next step.

Intuition is at its best and most exciting when it brings forth new angles and paths to business, and life, solutions. It's important to recognize your own personal voice and benefit the world around you!

According to Jim Rivett, Archetype Principal and Creative Director, "Intuition is key to design, and through it, impacts the marketplace in exciting, surprising and rewarding ways."

When your intuition is buzzing, go with it. After all, intuition is the new analysis alternative. Overdone are the days when a committee tones it down to the blues of the bland. If you don't take risk, you won't feel the rhythm.

These intuitive inventors insisted on playing their own tune:

• Galileo got it going in space.
• Edison built an edifice.
• Watt lit up our lives.
• DaVinci was a do-it man.
• Otis elevated our world.
• McCormick reaped what he sowed.
• Gutenberg gave guts to reproduction.

Why quit when your rhythm is bent for revolution? These mind-benders did it:

• The Beatles kept rocking when Decca Recording said, "...guitar music is on the way out."
• Computer pioneers paid no attention when the president of Digital Equipment said, "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."
• Fred Smith founded that little company, Federal Express, after he was told by his Yale University professor, "The concept is interesting...but in order to earn better than a C, the idea must be feasible."
• From Pierre Omidyar's San Jose living room in 1995, to today's multi-billion-dollar commerce, ebay™ began with the gut feeling about a new marketplace.

What about the flat and sharp between foolish and genius germinations?

• Dean Kamen is on the cusp with his invention of the Segway™ Human Transporter. Kamen's intuition told him that new ideas are needed for "urban spaces, commerce, community, and your next trip to the store." Regardless of whether the Segway succeeds, Dean's intuition about urban changes to come is likely on the mark.

Watch out. Maybe too many people got too civilized. They don't trust their own truths. They play it safe. They don't call it intuition anymore in the business world. That's too slippery for the analysts. So, partner with progressive people seeking new journeys and whose music leaves you stirred.

Finally, everything (and nothing) is different in the world of driving your dreams forward. Don't get distracted when mixing the notes between brilliance and being a beacon with a new beat.

(Susan Stansbury, Archetype Group. © July 2003)