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Most decisions fall into one of four categories:

• Routine business decisions
• Non-routine business decisions
• Routine personal decisions
• Non-routine personal decisions

Routine decisions – whether business or personal – are easy. We make them without a lot of thought. Kahneman and Klein identified four criteria to be met in order to make a decision by instinct:

1. We have been in the situation numerous times before;
2. We got quick, reliable feedback on how good or bad our decisions were;
3. There are no strong emotions overriding our logic, and;
4. We’re relatively unbiased – i.e., our information is unbiased and our incentives align with those of the team or company.

If even one of these criteria is not met in a business situation, intuition needs help from a more structured decision-making process. This structure can be achieved by framing the problem correctly, generating creative alternative courses of action, and then evaluating those alternatives against one’s objectives while fully accounting for the uncertainty in the situation. Analysis of this type does not tell you what to do; rather, it gives you non-intuitive insight into the situation. Such insight can make the difference between success and failure in complex business decisions.

In complex personal decisions, David Brooks of the NY Times suggests a novel approach: flip a coin, but don’t simply follow the result of the coin flip. Rather, pay attention to how you feel when you look at the coin. Happy? Relieved? Distressed? This can tell you a lot about what your subconscious thinks about the situation. In emotional, personal decisions, your subconscious has often processed more information than your conscious mind has. Discovering these subconscious preferences can be very revealing and insightful.