Around the table, nobody doubts. She knows how to arbitrate, she knows how to lead. But the file is 'atypical.' The grid says no. And very often, the grid wins.
Published on 2026-03-09 by Nathalie Lamborghini Dumas.
Around the table, nobody doubts.
She knows how to arbitrate. She knows how to lead. She has held perimeters that others wouldn't even have wanted. But the file is "atypical": non-linear trajectory, gaps in the CV, turns that are hard to code into a grid.
The grid says no. Everyone around the table thinks: she can do it. And very often, the grid wins. Even when decision-makers would have wanted to decide otherwise.
This is not a "women's" issue. It's a decision-making issue.
This disconnect has intrigued me for a long time. I spent twenty years in large corporations before becoming an entrepreneur. Twenty years where everything was about boxes, KPIs, promotion grids. And when you don't fit into the boxes, you have to fight three times harder to move up.
Because these trajectories that our models struggle to read (those that have gone through disruptions, negotiated very concrete life constraints, dealt with the unexpected) are also trajectories that have developed something precise: the ability to decide with reality, not just with data.
Intelligence built through experience
Research from MIT and McKinsey on decision-making in uncertain contexts shows that what we call "intuition" is not a vague flair. It is a form of intelligence built through experience, which learns to read weak signals, cross-reference constraints, and anticipate side effects. The more demanding the terrain, the stronger this intelligence becomes.
The grids will become more powerful
We are entering a period where grids will become more powerful: AI-driven potential scoring, predictive performance models, automated promotion recommendations. Good. We need them to objectify and optimize (even though these tools themselves carry biases: those of the data on which they were trained).
But an algorithm recommends. It doesn't sign. It doesn't carry. It doesn't own. It's not there when you need to look someone in the eye and say: I made this decision.
What algorithms will never sign
When careers rich in lived complexity don't access the places where important decisions are made, we don't lose "women's intuition." We lose diversity of judgment. Linear careers have their strength. But when they are the only ones represented, it means less intuitive intelligence. Everyone's. The kind that's missing when decisions are made solely on paper for lives that don't fit into boxes.
Yesterday was March 8th. Many figures, many observations. All correct. But this morning, one question remains:
In the age of AI, what place do we leave for intuitive intelligence?