METRO WEST DAILY NEWS
September 22, 1999

Management by Intuition?

By Andrea L. Stape
News Business Writer

WELLESLEY -- Intuitive consultant Lynn Robinson wants business people to tap into their "cosmic information bank." Robinson, a self-professed psychic, is convinced intuition and 'gut' feelings play a pivotal role in making business decisions.

"We all tend to get these feelings but we discount them," the Natick resident says. "Sometimes it takes a lot of guts to listen to your intuition."

So, while antacid may seem like a good solution, Robinson suggests those small voices inside could be more than a haunting from yesterday's pastrami-on-rye. Business people trying to make important business decisions should collect all the facts, clear their minds and just "tune into the cosmic radio -- WESP," she says.

Like a muscle, the more often business people follow their intuition to hire employees or propose an offbeat idea to a client, the stronger and more developed it will get, says Robinson.

"The more you trust your intuition, the more you'll get intuitive nudges," she says.

Most business people might shake their heads, roll their eyes and walk off in disbelief. But not the New England Chapter of the Association of Image Consultants International.

Last week, the group of mostly women entrepreneurs invited Robinson to address their monthly membership meeting in Waltham. Acting on her own intuition, Leslie Larocca, president of the AICI's New England chapter, felt there was a deep synergy between Robinson's teaching and the image consulting industry.

"For most image consultants, intuition is a major key to working with clients," says Larocca, owner of Natick-based In Sight. Image consultants help clients with etiquette issues, public speaking and overhauling their wardrobes. It's a job which requires a good bit of sensitivity and not a lot of hard data, says Larocca.

"In these kinds of cases there aren't any absolutes or rules," she says. "We are always looking for a way to increase our intuitive abilities and figure out the best way to work with clients."

And according to Robinson, trusting and following those inner voices doesn't only help to handle clients. Visualization and affirmation techniques can be used to attract business, she says. Those gut feelings can also come in handy when business owners or managers are faced with tough hiring decisions.

"The trickiest part of trusting this stuff is that it's intangible," she says. Skeptical?

While intuition shouldn't be the only rationale behind those big business decisions, it's not to be discounted either, says Joseph Weintraub, a management professor at Wellesley's Babson College. "Intuition is definitely needed in business," says Weintraub.

For example, he points to Federal Express Corp. founder Fred Smith. Urban legend has it that Smith received a mediocre grade in college when he proposed the idea of package delivery as a profitable business model.

History shows the professor was wrong, and Smith's intuition was right. "There was clearly something there he needed to follow," says Weintraub.

And the need to use intuition in business spans a variety of industries, adds Weintraub. Just as entrepreneurs need to trust their intuition and take leaps of faith, so does the software engineer creating a computer game, he says.

Also, "managerial roles in business require a lot of intuition," he says. "Some of it requires using past data, but some of it is evaluating values and deciding if it's the right thing to do," for the employees and the business.

And, ultimately doing the "right" thing is what Robinson's message boils down to. For her, using intuition to influence business decisions essentially means doing what feels comfortable -- even if it seems, at face value, to be a little offbeat.

"It doesn't make sense to me that I should say, 'this feels really bad, I'm going to do it,"' said Robinson. "When you trust your impulses, and enthusiasm, 'luck' tends to happen."

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