Question 1

What is intuitive intelligence in business?

Accepted Answer

Intuitive intelligence is an executive's ability to draw on immediate perception, informed by experience, alongside analysis. It does not stand in opposition to reason: it comes into play where data is incomplete, contradictory, or too slow to gather. Nathalie Lamborghini Dumas works on this with executives under the name "decision habitée" (inhabited decision).

Question 2

Can you trust your intuition when you are running a company?

Accepted Answer

Yes, provided you make it explicit and put it to the test. An experienced executive's intuition is a rapid reading of weak signals already encountered before. The work consists of naming it, testing where it comes from, then cross-checking it against the analysis until it becomes evident.

Question 3

What is the "decision habitée" (inhabited decision)?

Accepted Answer

The inhabited decision is Nathalie Lamborghini Dumas's support method. It unfolds in three stages: looking at what is really at stake, naming what is perceived but not yet put into words, and clarifying until the decision becomes evident to the person who owns it.

Question 4

I am stuck, I cannot make an important decision: what should I do?

Accepted Answer

A decision block is rarely caused by a lack of information: it comes from a poorly framed question, an unspoken conflict of criteria, or an intuition one does not dare to name. The first step is to reformulate the real question, then to put the assumptions to the test with an outside third party. Nathalie Lamborghini Dumas supports executives through exactly this kind of block, using her inhabited-decision method: look, name, clarify until the point of evidence.

Question 5

How do you decide when the data is not enough to settle the matter?

Accepted Answer

When the data is incomplete, contradictory, or too slow to gather, analysis alone can no longer settle the matter. Intuitive intelligence must then be brought in: naming what the executive already perceives, tracing its origin back to their experience, then testing it against the analysis. The decision becomes tenable once it is fully owned by the person making it.

Question 6

How can I tell if my intuition as an executive is reliable?

Accepted Answer

An intuition is reliable when it is connected to genuinely lived experience and withstands being challenged. The test is to put it into explicit words, identify the weak signals that triggered it, then actively look for what could disprove it. An intuition that survives this scrutiny is a decision-relevant data point, not a whim.

Question 7

How do you tell a reliable intuition apart from a bias?

Accepted Answer

A sound intuition does not present itself as an intuition. It presents itself as evidence, and most often as something already known: when you come back to it, its content does not surprise you. You tell yourself, "that's what I thought." What comes with it is relief, rarely surprise. It is calm, discreet, and it arrives well before the crisis. A bias, on the other hand, needs to be defended; it heats up when contradicted. The simplest marker is effort: if holding to your decision requires you to keep convincing yourself, to over-argue, to leave yourself an exit, you have not finished recognising it.

Question 8

How do you get out of a decision that has been postponed for months?

Accepted Answer

A decision that has been dragging on for months is not waiting for more information. Most often the choice is already made, and what has not been accepted is its price. There are two things to acknowledge at the moment of deciding: the decision itself, and what it costs. Accepting the first without the second leaves the bill for the person you will be in six months. When it comes due, the person you have become disputes it, and the decision starts spinning again. The useful question is therefore about the price. Which one are you willing to pay, and which one do you refuse?

Question 9

Do you need a strategic committee to break out of decision-making solitude?

Accepted Answer

A committee brings challenge, and that is useful. It also carries a risk that few executives see coming: a decision can end up being occupied by someone else. It gets made, it carries your name, and yet you have never actually recognised it as your own. It is the co-produced decision without ownership that traps you. Someone who has owned their decision alone can change it at no cost, because their intent has not changed. Someone who let it be shaped by others around them can no longer do so, and will look for someone to blame if it fails. A committee, yes, provided the decision has been owned before walking into the room.

Question 10

Can you decide quickly without deciding badly?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Speed was never the problem. A decision made in ten minutes and fully owned can hold for years. A decision mulled over for six months against one's own gut feeling is paid for a long time: it keeps spinning after being made, and that is how you spot it. The marker holds at any speed. Once the decision is made, does it still occupy your mind? Does holding your position require you to convince yourself? If so, time had nothing to do with it.

Intuitive intelligence

What modern decision-making has disqualified

Do you recognise this moment?

You have turned it over in your mind, again and again.

You are torn between two directions.

Deep down, you have already chosen.

You succeed in a role that no longer truly looks like you.

Returning to a clear decision

Look

Name

Clarify

Your decision is already there. It is waiting to be heard.