I am sure there are many people out there who are getting tired of being told that there is a process for this and a process for that: one for being creative, another for leadership, one for recruitment and another for sacking people.

Maybe you are tired of your MBTIs and your Houses of Quality, your Six Sigma machine and evidenced based management of people and packages. Maybe you are asking, "Where is humanity in the human being in the 21st Century?"

The 20th Century was driven by a quest for more information and better processes to review that information. It was hoped this would lead to better decision making. The human decision maker was seen as needing to minimise error and required high level process control to get it right - mathematics rules!!! (even when the maths is created by magicians)

But maybe you feel that semi-automated decisions place efficiency above fairness and justice? You question that this is 'good' for business? 

You are right - the latest research on thinking, reflecting, being creative and making decisions challenges the assumptions of efficiency and effectiveness of totally process driven business. So let's explore these challenges and improve our understanding of how judgement is not decision making but a distinct part of sound thinking and reflection.

The Court Jester

Let's start with the Court Jester, whose job was not just to entertain the King but to prod and prompt, to disrupt, using humour to make open wounds while laughing at the nonsense of it all. 

I have chosen the Court Jester to aid our reflection on judgement as he has most to lose from poor judgement, including his life. If the joke is just too wounding, if the moment of incision is not quite right, then all can be lost. The Court Jester has to know when to back away and observe, to know what to observe and what to ignore, to know how to weigh up what is important and what is irrelevant. The Court Jester has to understand the nature of reason and the possibility of folly, to know how to read feelings and to know if they are transitory or deep. The Court Jester's role is as the Guardian of Judgement.

Just like being a leader maybe?

The problem with reason

The problem with reason is that it has one set of scales for everything. It measures units of things. 15 elephants is the same as 15 tables and 15 feelings of joy. Reason is called a cheap calculator by Jonah Lehrer in his book, How we Decide, because it is just a new bit of the brain and not very sophisticated. Why do we have the expression 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'? Because reason can't help you decide which is better or worse. Two is more than one, so go for two in the bush!

The problem with intuition

The problem with intuition is it is pretty bad at handling any of these features of events: sudden, scary and unexpected. Imagine walking across the park, trying to get your head round an important decision; to buy or not to buy? Suddenly a big, black crow falls dead at your feet. It is sudden, it is unexpected and it is scary. Now your intuition is shot.