What Looks Like Instinct
What looks like instinct is memory under pressure.
Gary Klein studied firefighters making life-or-death decisions. Under pressure, experienced crews didn’t pause to weigh options. They took in the scene, spotted a familiar pattern, imagined what might happen if they acted, and moved. From the outside it looked like gut feel. In practice it was pattern recognition - rehearsed intuition built from exposure and reflection.
The sequence is simple. First, perception - seeing the situation clearly. Second, recognition - matching it to something known. Third, execution - acting quickly with room to adjust. What looks like instinct is actually a large, well-indexed mental library.
Most business leaders recognise firefighting as part of the job. Few spend time thinking about how to improve at it. They treat it as something to survive, not something to train.
But if intuition is really recognition, then better firefighting depends on the size and freshness of your mental library. You can build this deliberately rather than hoping it arrives with seniority.
Write decisions down. Not in sterile logs, but in the natural trails of work - emails, notes, slides. When outcomes arrive, compare them with the reasoning at the time. This feedback loop, imperfect but steady, sharpens recognition. You learn which patterns held and which didn’t.
Read widely. You can only match to what you’ve encountered. Cases, histories, biographies - even outside your own sector - offer second-hand experience. Leaders with broader shelves recognise more patterns when they appear.
Stay close to reality. Walk the floor, speak with customers, listen to staff. Pattern recognition only works if your patterns reflect what’s actually happening, not what you assume is happening.
Pattern recognition works, but it’s not foolproof. Three traps recur.
Overconfidence makes you treat every fire as one you’ve seen before. On major calls, bring in a dissenting voice. Let them show you what doesn’t fit the pattern.
Experience gaps hit newer managers hardest. They lean on weak patterns because they don’t have better ones yet. Accelerate exposure through projects, reviews, and mentoring. Build the library faster.
Stale models persist long after they stop working. What worked once may not work now. Refresh your assumptions against external practice. Check whether your patterns still match reality.
Look at the last three crises you handled. What pattern did you match to? If you can’t articulate it, you’re not building the library. You’re just reacting.
Write down what you decided and why. Read outside your sector. Stay close to what’s real. Crises will keep coming. The question is whether each one trains you for the next.
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