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Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement resources

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6 Strategic Intuition modern world. And science gives us the world’s most respected method for coming up with useful ideas: the scientifi c method. Most professions—law, business, and myriad others—try to emulate the scientifi elds. So right away c method in their own fi we ask, Does strategic intuition conform to or violate the scien- tifi c method? To answer that question we turn to Thomas Kuhn, the great historian of scientifi The Structure c achievement. In of Scientifi (1962) Kuhn gives us a blow-by-blow c Revolutions account of how science really advanced, in the period from Copernicus to Einstein.4 Sure enough, we fi ashes of insight nd fl at the very heart of it. The result is a new understanding of the scientifi c method, where strategic intuition stands out as one of its major steps. Our second fi eld is neuroscience. We trace the history of two Nobel Prizes, to Roger Sperry in 1981 and Eric Kandel in 2000. Sperry won for his work on the two-sided brain: the right side is creative and intuitive but irrational, and the left side is ratio- nal and analytical but lacks imagination. Sperry studied actual patients with their brains cut in half. This left–right idea spread around the world and remains strong to this day. Someone will say, “I’m a left-brained type,” or “Let’s use our right brains on this.” In the Sperry model strategic intuition would be impossible, as it combines both sides of the brain. And so enters Kandel, who overturns Sperry with a whole-brain model that combines analy- sis and intuition in all modes of thought. Neuroscientists call it intelligent memory, where fl ashes of insight large and small take past elements from memory anywhere in the brain and combine them in new ways. This new model reveals strategic intuition as a form of rational thought in the whole brain, rather than irrational thought on the irrational side of the brain. For our third fi eld, psychology, we study expert intuition—the snap judgments of experts in action. The psychologist Gary Klein pioneered the study of rapid decision making in real-life situa- tions, starting at a fi rehouse in Cleveland. An emergency call, a torn artery, and the swift actions of Lieutenant M, the offi cer in 40962 Ch01 001-010 r1.indd 6 40962 Ch01 001-010 r1.indd 6 8/10/07 11:40:14 AM8/10/07 11:40:14 AM

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