SPIRIT IN WORK
Trusting Business Intuition
"It produces good quality work for us to the extent that we give it good quality
input."
Ed Sloan
Venture Inward, Sep/Oct, 1985
Ed Sloan, an A.R.E. member and business man from
Virginia Beach, helped establish the annual A.R.E. business conference.
As a business tool, intuition is a marvelous thing to have. If you aren't using it, I'd
strongly recommend that you look into it. There are many models of intuition. The one that
would be best for you depends upon the nature of your work. This brief survey of the field
may help you with your shopping.
If your work calls on you to make a lot of decisions and you must do so without as much
rational data or as much time as you'd like, you might consider the Hunch Model. You feed
it with whatever data are available. The data can include facts and figures, opinions of
others, and your own alternative solutions. At decision time, you simply use whichever
alternative feels right. With this model, you are influenced by facts and by the opinions
of others. If you use the "gut feeling" variation of the model, you accept what
your gut feeling says, regardless of everybody and everything else.
The basic Hunch Model is sometimes called "the Connie," after hotel owner Conrad
Hilton who could borrow millions of dollars from friends who believed that "Connie's
hunches" were dependable. Hilton's autobiography suggests that his hunches were the
result of his intense interest in and knowledge of his work, his honest desire to live up
to his end of a bargain, personal discipline, and his light touch.
Hilton also insisted that his hotels live up to a bargain. I once checked in at the
Waldorf Astoria, where I had reserved a single room, but when the bellman delivered me
upstairs I found myself in a suite. I called the desk and was told that because no single
room was available the suite would be billed at the single-room rate. Hilton's policy was
the reverse of common practice at most hotels and motels that charge the higher rate
whenever higher-priced accommodations
must be substituted. The Waldorf, however, lived up to its agreement. Perhaps an operative
function of intuition is bound up in what we mean by the word "intention."
Another model of intuition is the Ah-ha Model. It provides the answer to a problem in a
flash of insight, usually while you are not at work. For example, you come out of a movie,
touch your car door and, "Ah ha," the answer strikes you. It is clearer than a
hunch.
Another model that appeals to people who will take time to deliberate about decisions or
who feel more comfortable with a working style of quietness and isolation is the
Meditative Model. It works best if kept in one place and not moved around much. Some
people believe that working with it in a darkened room is helpful. Some say that burning
incense helps its function. Some play music for it. Still others add chanting. But these
options are secondary to the basic function of the unit which calls for the operator to
sit quietly and meditate.
There are several variations of the Meditative Model. One, named the HBP, calls for the
meditator to frame questions that can be answered "yes" or "no" and
then to feel the correct answer deep inside. More information about this model can be
found in Meditation and the Mind of Man by Herbert Puryear and Mark Thurston.
Another Meditative Model called The Cayce is, for me, easier to use. It simply requires
the operator to perform a few minutes of daily meditation. The "ritual" is less
important than with the HBP or some others. Results don't come in the form of hunches or
answers but in better quality decisions all the time. This intuition seems to come more
readily to people who are willing to meet weekly with other people of similar interests
who study together about how the total Cayce system works. I've benefited from this
approach and have seen spectacular results from it. More information is available in the
two little "A Search for God" books.
I had interesting experiences with the Cayce Model while working as a sales manager over
about a dozen men scattered throughout eight states. On one occasion, while I called on a
customer with a salesman, the latter took along samples of packaging containers we
produced for one of the company's new products. Impulsively, I picked up several samples
of items we were already producing for the company and said to the salesman, "Perhaps
it would be a good idea if we also discussed this one today. it may be time to consider a
new design."
The salesman assured me that our customer wouldn't be interested. Because he was one of
our senior salesmen, I assumed he knew best and I dropped the subject. But shortly
thereafter we lost out to a competitor who had redesigned the package. My feeling about
the value of redesigning that package had been valid. I should have followed my intuition.
During that period I also became adept at handling complicated pricing over the telephone.
My office was remote from our manufacturing plants where cost estimates were made.
Frequently I received estimates by phone with no opportunity to study them. A salesman in
the field would call me for prices. I would discuss the account with him, then put him on
hold while I sat quietly for a moment or two before calling out prices to him. It was
uncanny how I could develop the proper prices even on long lists of items.
During this period it was my practice to dose my office door at noon to "do some
work, undisturbed." The work was meditation. I believe meditating at the office had a
beneficial effect on my business intuition.
A variation of the Cayce Model is what I call "just knowing." It is excellent
for salespersons who must do prospecting. My first clear impression of this model came
when a company opened a large operation in the territory I covered as a salesman. The
first time I walked into their lobby I "just knew" that we belonged together.
This "sense" of rightness helped me hang in with this prospect despite a lot of
discouragement and a very long sales process. Eventually, I not only supplied their
packaging needs but provided market research services and redesigned their corporate
image. It was a mutually rewarding relationship. This sense of "just knowing"
happens with increasing frequency for me.
The Cayce Model was developed out of the psychic readings that Edgar Cayce gave for scores
of people. A reading that he gave for a real estate agent illustrates the results that can
be expected of the Meditative Model when used for business. The agent asked, "What
can I do to make a financial success in this [real estate] line?" The response in
reading 912-1 included this advice: "When inspecting or making estimates, then, know
the properties that may be in demand." Then where people are concerned, "know
just in looking at individuals who would fit into" that property in such a way that
they would have a helpful experience; not just to live there or to work there but to have
a positive, helpful experience.
To accomplish this, the agent was told that several things were required:
• A thorough knowledge of the business and the available properties.
• A study of human nature to know "the needs, wants, desires in individuals
lives."
• When working with the people, to hold the idea that your service will be so good
that the resulting relationship between the people and the property will be constructive
-- so constructive, in fact, that the association of the people and the property will
-make for ideals in their experience."
In-depth knowledge of the Edgar Cayce readings' philosophy may be needed to intuit the
full implications of this reading. When it suggests that the agent "just know"
something when looking at someone (or something), it may be saying that this particular
agent is already psychic enough to do that. Or it may be saying that the agent can develop
that ability.
Another way of stating the suggestions to the agent is:
• Know your business. That's sound business instruction. The reading didn't say
"be psychic and you can forget the rest." It said know real estate and know the
properties that are available.
• Be intuitive. What else do you call "just knowing"?
• Know people. Like knowing your business, knowing people is the other half of any
transaction. People buy things.
• Have an ideal for yourself in your business. A good ideal is such that when people
and the property come together their relationship will be constructive-not just an
"okay" relationship and not just a highly satisfactory one, but a relationship
that will see both parties grow and be better than they were before the transaction.
The reading promises that if this approach is taken, the success for all parties will
increase "a thousand percent."
Finally, the reading says that this approach will work in any service dealing with people
and things. That is a strong and encouraging promise. Often we feel that our working lives
do not lend themselves to spiritual expression. But when we can bring people and products
together in a constructive way, that can be a healing and loving act.
As a business tool, intuition is a marvelous thing to have. It produces good quality work
for us to the extent that we give it good quality input. Enjoying our business, loving
people, and having worthy ideals for our relationships are recommended input. Intuition is
also enhanced when its output is used to make life more livable for others
as well as for ourselves.