Have you ever heard of someone making a decision based on their gut, chances are good it’s not just their gut, but in case you think trusting your gut implicitly is a good idea, consider these thoughts
Bad people know how to manipulate your gut. Bernie Madoff and others have disarmed potential investors with their charm. Bernie impressed people with his career accomplishments and bamboozled them by extolling his kudos from other investors who were also unknowingly being conned.
Some people are better at reading you than you are at reading them. If you are in a weak moment or suffer from low self-esteem, they may pump your tires with compliments to make you feel good about yourself. Sometimes it’s innocent, other times it’s to get what they want out of you.
Our guts make us let down our guard or raise it falsely. Our guts, for instance, often cause us to trust people based on superficial details— our own ethics, our connection to a person, similarities etc. and a lot of the time those things pose no relative value. We trust people who look and dress like us, and conversely are skeptical of people that don’t look like us or share values. Internal bias can be disruptive in all areas but especially in hiring. I have seen many instances where a seemingly unusual person is a great fit for a career profile and vice-versa.
Our guts can be right, but sometimes they’re not. Trusting your gut is sometimes like flipping a coin. That’s why you probably wouldn’t trust your gut about whether a parachute has been packed and you know how to operate it. You want to make sure it’s serviced properly and you are acutely aware of how and when to pull the cord before jumping out of the plane.
Guts like good wine…. can improve with time. But you have a hard time isolating how and why your gut improves and never know how much better it may be.
When you are hiring, it helps to have many different reference points and the best reference point may be someone that can be objective from outside your organization. You are less likely to rationalize away warning signs using your gut.
I’m not saying your gut is wrong all the time, but it should only be part of any important decision, including hiring.
How has your gut served you in the past?
