Cambridge Business Association
Strategic Intuition
Book

Strategic Intuition

The Creative Spark in Human Achievement

William Duggan
Columbia UP, 2007
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Management professor William Duggan has written a book that’s rare in several ways. First, his clear writing makes complex concepts accessible. Even more importantly, Duggan synthesizes perspectives from an array of traditions to explain how to change the way you understand and use strategic thinking. He convincingly argues that most books on strategy and strategic planning are wrong, and then he presents an alternative approach that builds on modern neuroscience and historian Thomas Kuhn’s theories of scientific revolution. Duggan illustrates his concepts by discussing innovators in several fields. He combines scholarship with candor to provide specific steps for developing your intuition and using it strategically. The book isn’t perfect – the discussion of education is a bit too brief and the conclusion is rushed – but it is highly useful. getAbstract recommends it to leaders who are responsible for planning, and to anyone interested in innovation.

Summary

What Is “Strategic Intuition?”

You might be driving, showering or dreaming when – bam! – inspiration hits. Sudden insights have sparked leaders, artists and scientists throughout history. But where do such ideas originate? Disciplines from “the history of science” to “Asian philosophy” offer elements of the answer. Researchers in neuroscience and cognitive psychology are finally synthesizing insights from these fields and others to explain those “Aha!” moments in terms of three types of intuition:

  1. “Ordinary intuition” – Feelings, “gut instincts” and vague hunches shape your choices.
  2. “Expert intuition” – You make “snap judgments” about a field you know well. This kind of mental leap, which Malcolm Gladwell discusses in Blink, comes from studying similar problems until you process solutions faster than conscious thought.
  3. Strategic intuition – Using “thinking, not feeling,” over time, you link disparate elements to produce a new idea. “A flash of insight cuts through the fog of your mind with a clear, shining thought...at last you see clearly what to do.”

About the Author

William Duggan, author of The Art of What Works: How Success Really Happens and Napoleon’s Glance: The Secret of Strategy, teaches at Columbia Business School.

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