Carroll Dean Shares Advice in Forbes

Andy Boynton, dean of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, recently published an article for Forbes on “trusting your gut” and how to make better decisions. The article discusses how the advice to “trust your gut” could be a brilliant decision, or could just as easily become a terrible mistake. Boynton explains that “being able to distinguish one from the other is a critical skill for a leader or anyone making a decision.”

So how does Boynton explain when and how you should trust your gut when making business decisions?  He gives three rules of thumb for trusting your gut. He first explains that it is helpful to trust your gut when you are in a situation such as working in an environment that is fast-changing and data is not always the best direction to follow. Balancing the data with your instincts, explains Boynton can be a step in the right direction.

The three rules for knowing when to rely on trusting your gut, as told by Boynton are:

1. It makes better sense to use your gut when deciding on something you know a lot about.

2. Bring multiple options into the mix.

3. Step back and reflect on your own thoughts, observations, and judgments.

Boynton closes the article by explaining that the best way to make a gut decisions is to not make one at all. He says, “For me, a decision “straight from the gut” is best understood as one that’s not, well, straight from the gut. It does come from feeling and intuition, but it’s not detached from empirical thinking, reasoning, and no small amount of experimentation.”

regions: Boston

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