Strategic Intuition

I read through Strategic Intuition by William Duggan a month back and found it to be an interesting book to read on how the creative spark of strategic intuition occurs. Duggan presents findings from various sources and identifies the moment of strategic intuition that lead to the idea. At the end of the reading, I realized the many moments when I had the spark on big and trivial things could be called as moments of clarity or strategic intuition.

All of Duggan’s subjects were very knowledgeable of their respective fields, had read widely and had deep involvements or firsthand exposure to some of the larger problems or the Karma of the field they were in. While strategic intuition can happen at any time, the problems they were tackling were upon them. What I find that Duggan does not elaborate on is the role that necessity plays. While Duggan rightly mentions that there is no identifiable way to generate the creative spark on demand, I believe that by following the points listed below, I can be better positioned to identify my Dharma at an apt moment:

1. Read. Read. And Read. Through personal experience, I find that reading puts content on the shelves of our brains. The more variety we read, the more content our brain can use to connect the dots and complete the creative spark.
2. Observation. As Duggan points out, Allen and Gates look at the magazine article which ignited the spark eventually leading to Microsoft. By having a keen eye, we can identify an opportunity or get inputs which would give us our moment of clarity.
3. Persistence. As with all the examples cited in Strategic Intuition, I find a common thread called persistence. Despite rejections and earlier failures, if we stick to our Dharma we can eventually follow that path towards our goal. This leads to my final point on Belief.
4. Belief. While having a spark in time and getting the required clarity can expose our Dharma, not having faith or belief in our capabilities or in the validity of the strategic intuition can unravel our confidence and lead to a path of failure.

The key takeaway for someone looking to enhance their understanding of strategy and improve their strategic thinking skills is:

1. Be open to ideas from outside the organization for they might provide the creative spark required. It is not necessary to act upon all that we hear, but it is imperative to hear out ideas, criticisms, and suggestions from different sources and keep them in the shelves of our brain.
2. Collecting and analyzing data gives us a deep understanding of the situation we are in. It does not give you an idea for what to do about it. The importance of insights from analyzing data cannot be ruled out in generating the creative spark, but without the other aspects described above, analysis does not give us strategic intuition and show us our Dharma.

I find myself reflecting more these days and as I obediently reflected on Duggan’s work, I find an uncertain fear at the back of my mind telling me that despite being prepared, what if you miss the spark. While I know that there is no answer to that, I think that having an appetite for knowledge, enthusiasm for your actions, active engagement and having belief will position you better to finding your Dharma no matter what your Karma is. And this extends to my personal life as well.