Strategic Thinking Under Chaotic Conditions: the “General’s Glance” Beyond Analysis and Intuition

Napoleon at Wagram by Horace Vernet

As I finished writing this post, McKinsey & Co. republished a classic interview on the role of intuition in corporate decision making. It was surprising to see a bastion of linear analytical thinking interested in such an elusive topic. Also amusing was to see the guest interviewees, a psychologist and an economist, disagreeing on almost every aspect of intuition (McKinsey). But why is intuition any relevant to strategic thinking?

Bad decisions are not something military, emergency and business leaders can often make. Yet, given the pressures and uncertainties in which they operate, experienced professionals show a remarkable success rate. In trying to identify the causes of success under chaos, new research in neuroscience and battlefield performance are discovering mental processes that defy conventional training models prevalent in business and war schools.

In the conventional model, analysis and intuition are seen as mutually exclusive yet complementary capabilities, as each is activated in different phases of the project cycle. First, based on long-term goals, you define hypotheses sustaining alternative scenarios, and based on comparative estimates, you select the optimal course of action. Only then intuition may apply: a gut check that prompts you to creatively adapt midair when things don’t “feel” right. Strategy is analytical, execution is intuitive. This approach works well in organizational contexts in which you need to justify your decisions against clear objectives; or in situations where political conflict arises over distinct choices.

However, new psychological studies suggest that expert decision making in chaotic situations actually follows a different template. Experienced professionals seem to combine analysis and intuition from the outset, and, although spiking in different phases, analysis and intuition are always informing and influencing each other throughout the problem solving process (Klein, Gordon, Duggan). In dramatic situations, this is manifested as the piercing insight that comes from observing terrain hotspots and pitfalls: the officer who turns a losing battle, the firefighter who escapes the burning inferno, the nurse who saves lives in overwhelming conditions, the entrepreneur who rapidly pivots the startup from certain market failure.

This ability has been a longtime interest in the military. War situations explicitly reveal this “battlefield intuition”, as the uncanny ability to make right decisions under highly adverse circumstances. One of the most successful generals in history, Napoleon Bonaparte was remarkable in this trait (Ridgley). As he describes his experience of winning battles:

The issue of a battle is the result of an instant, of a thought. There is the advance, with its various combinations… The battle is joined, the struggle goes on for a certain time… Then, the decisive moment presents itself, a spark of genius discloses it, and the smallest body of reserves accomplish victory!

His exceptional ability was carefully examined by his nemesis, Prussian strategist and general Carl Von Clausewitz. Just like business planning and execution often fail, he noted that massive army resources, extensive planning, and technical excellence were not enough to secure victory. “Friction” is the result of uncertainty, chance and probability upsetting expected outcomes. But Napoleon regularly beat the odds. Clausewitz termed this coup d’oeil, the insightful glance, or the general’s glance. It is the flash of insight as a sudden ability to see what needs to be done despite uncertainties all around. It results from a sharp focus on means and ends of action, drawing from the individual’s knowledge, experience and observation immediately.

Neuroscience tries to explain this uncanny ability as a type of intelligent memory (Gordon, Klein). From interviews with experts from various occupations, this intuition is neither based on gut instinct (ordinary intuition) nor on muscle memory (expert intuition), nor on any extra-sensory power (Time, Young). Decision makers were making rapid connections between a critical situation in which they were caught in, and their prior experience stored in their deepest memories (not only one's own personal memories but also the learnings we absorb from other many experts).

The selective recombination of past references into future projections is a key trait of such “strategic intuition” (Duggan). Usually faster than pure analysis, strategic intuition works well in unfamiliar situations and amid competing courses of action. As newly predicted outcomes may not fit previous goals, the decision maker must follow through, and work out the details along the way. The combination of analysis and intuition becomes a work of creative insight, as the ability to recombine pieces of information leads to greater understanding and enables new behaviors and responses.

In seeking to develop the “insightful glance” or “strategic intuition”, we must refrain from seeing strategy as purely analytical. We must recognize that intuition plays a role in strategic thinking from the outset. This realization may help analysts to more adeptly anticipate reactions to unforeseen conditions, thus honing a state of readiness and potential initiative. This requires that advisers be more supple in incorporating this pragmatic mindset into their occupational ethos.

In sum, skilled decision makers do not generate multiple options, nor do they develop plans from scratch. Instead, they work from the perception of a specific goal being reachable. They use accumulated expertise to read situations, create possible solutions, and timely act. As they study the situation in search of patterns, problem and solution are visualized at the same time. In the general’s glance, analysis and intuition happen simultaneously, and likewise so do problem and solution.


References

Clausewitz, Carl von. 1832. On War.

Duggan, William. 2005. Coup D'Oeil: Strategic Intuition in Army Planning

Gordon, Barry. 2003. Intelligent Memory

Klein, Gary. 1998. Source of Power: How People Make Decisions

Klein, Gary. 2009. Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making

McKinsey & Company. 2010. Strategic Decisions: When can you trust your gut?

Napoleon, Bonaparte. 1916. In His Own Words

Ridgley, Stanley 2012. Strategic Thinking Skills

Time. 2017. U.S. Military Believes Humans Have a Sixth Sense Intuition

Young, Leon (Australian Army). Battlefield Intuition: It’s not a mystery