The Case of the Bonsai Manager

Executive Director, Tata Sons, R Gopalakrishnan told CNBC-TV18, "We have knowledge and knowledge is knowing what we know. While intuition is not knowing what you know. That is the distinction. If I use that distinction, the techniques used to analyse that market, in this case Arabia and it was about detergents - was applied and all sorts of different answers were popping up."

"We found concentrated detergent would be a very welcome breakthrough in the Arabian market. But I had an intuition that was based on looking around and observing because I was new to the Arabian market. Why would people there want a concentrated detergent pack rather than a big one?"

He explains, "Size in this market is not an issue, unlike in Japan. That's what made me feel that something was not right and I inquired into the whole issue."

One thing, he says, that holds a key to intuition is BRIM - brain remote implicit memory. He explains this as, "if your brain had an e-mail ID  which is a receptacle of a lot of files of data that you have experienced. The only qualification for that file to be stored there, is that the experience should have been emotion-rich."

But managers are taught to be objective, analytical and emotion-free. But the emotional things are stuck in the BRIM and it struck him that, what would happen, if you did the exact opposite to all that analysing? He does not suggest that intuition is a substitute for analyses. He says that ultimately, analysis can only be done for so long and then people should move ahead on gut feeling too.

In his book, Gopalakrishnan has talked about Toyota which practices this concept of BRIM without ever questioning the rationale behind it and this has made it the top selling car brand in the world. But he also says that people apply this to everyday situations as well, especially when they don't have the time or the tools to analyse a situation any further. He adds, "Intuition enhances the value of your analysis but doesn't substitue it." 

Gopalakrishnan says that "everyday there are a number of signals coming at you from subordinates, suppliers, customers. We listen to the people in the middle of the bell curve and we tend to ignore the people at the ends.I'm arguing that intuition is developed by listening to people at the ends of the spectrum." So, listening and emersing matters

He also adds that emersing oneself does not mean going to work at 6.00 in the morning and coming home at midnight. It means contemplating, without which intuition can not be honed.