| Instinct: Or, Why You Don't Even Have to Listen to Yourself! |
[May. 19th, 2006|06:01 pm] |
Today, I actually had a pretty good day at work. I got to be right. One of my upper bosses disagreed with me on a particular piece of information I was getting, but I trusted my instincts and turned out to be right. The problem was about an unexpectedly high flow, which was violated certain common sense rules about how flow works. I recognized that the flow concerned was a gravity flow, which behaves differently than a flow with a pump. But I digress, and the real issue isn't engineering but the Importance of Hunches.
Oh, but before I get to that, I want to gloat briefly and mention that the icing on this whole cake was getting to give a lecture on why I was right and he was, well, wrong to the head boss who came downstairs to check in on things (I wouldn't gloat as gleefully if he just told me he didn't believe yet another of my loopy theories -which often turn out to be correct, btw- instead of trying to make me look bad at that point). Sorry, I guess I'm not above shadenfrude.
On the othet hand, the prievious day, I decide not to follow a hunch. A trend looked like a drop in level, and I was fairly sure, but when I called to the watchstation, they said someone was working on the instrument at that exact moment. I wanted to send someone to actually look at the tank, but decided that the cause was just the work being done. It just made sense. But it was wrong. I've always tried to train my newbies to put someone's eyes on things whenever they feel "it's just not quite right."
Trust Your Instincts. It's amazing the amount of data the mind can process heuristically. I would trust an experienced person's judgment over reams of information and calculations usually. Just so many different factors a person tosses into their calculations. Now, one can put the two together. But interstingly -I forget the study- people are usually able to guess things with about an 80% accuracy which is good enough for most things. But yet, even with a person who's aware of their usual correctness, we doubt guesses. I wonder if there's a conflict in the back of our brain where it goes "That branch is big enough," with another part designed as an internal devil's advocate which goes "No, it isn't." I think this would be a useful thing to have, an internal demon who's whole job is to keep us from doing things, thereby often preventing us from getting into danger. We don't listen to it that often, but it's alway talking. It's just often wrong. |
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