http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03hdf8c/The_Bottom_Line_Series_15_Episode_5/
31/10/13 Evan Davis discuss why deals go right and what happens when they go wrong, with his guests: Sir George Buckley – former CEO, 3M and currently Chairman Designate of the engineering group Smiths Sir Michael Rake – Chairman of BT Group and Deputy Chairman of Barclays Juergen Maier – MD of Siemens UK and Ireland.
One surprising thing they all had in common was their use of ‘intuition’ for business deals and takeovers.
Evan Davis asked about the execution of takeovers. He asked about the human element and how they are driving by egos and other human factors. Juergen Maier replied (and I am paraphrasing) that in any decision there has to be a lot of gut feel. That you will have done your diligence, and at the end of the day the right people will get together with their experience and expertise, but in the end it comes down to a gut feel.
Sir Michael Rake agreed by saying (again I am paraphrasing) Many people I have spoken to have said there is an intuition that people have about certain issues. It tells you something about the people of that company. You can take advice but it comes down to more than that. It’s not good to be stupid, but it’s not enough to be clever. There are things that happen in the marketplace that you couldn’t possibly for see.
George Buckley finally described it by saying ‘It is gut, it isn’t guess work and it is the sum of all of your experience’
How exciting that the business world he expressing they use multiple ways of knowing to get answers. Think about all the money people spread of experts to analyse trends and markets, and the people at the top, use intuition.
Now I just need to send them my book ‘You Do Know’ as Gut lead intuition is the most primitive of what is possible to intuitively know from!
