intuition vs decisiveness vs haste
whats the difference lol
“Oceans Twelve” Laser Dance scene, La Caution - Thé à la Menthe
There’s something to be said about the differences between decisiveness, intuition, and haste. Because the lines between the 3 of them can get blurry. But each one has a different connotation to it and the last of them has the worst connotation. To be decisive is a quality that is impressive, and often associated with strong leadership. To be intuitive is akin to having wisdom. Though lastly, to be hasty is to be imprudent and unwise. I’m going to meditate on these three concepts tonight as I write this.
[ hey, breaking the fourth wall here for a second, this writing voice is waaaay different from how i normally speak lol. i don’t wana necessarily ruin a good thing if i hooked u in that paragraph, but we’re all about stream of consciousness here baby]
In fact, there’s many a quotes dedicated to each.
“Often what is done in haste, we regret at leisure.”
―
Jeffrey Fry
“Haste makes Waste.”Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1753
―
Benjamin Franklin
“Don't try to comprehend with your mind. Your minds are very limited. Use your intuition.”
―
Madeleine L'Engle,
[ just to keep it 💯 i did no research here, i deadass googled “[insert word] quotes” ]
[anyways]
I’ve always wondered the correlation between the three. How do you be decisive but not too hasty? If intuition can help one circumvent certain rational processes to arrive at a conclusion, are you only decisive when correct and hasty when incorrect? I don’t know, but I’m open to exploring! So let’s do that.
Decisiveness
Decisiveness is easy when all the cards are laid out on the table in front of you. But I think it is most useful and earns respect when you have to embody this quality in the midst of a fog where not much is clear. It's to be able to say, “…Well, I don't have the all the pieces together. But something needs to be done. I need to pick a direction.”
For me the key to being decisive is about having the right sort of risk tolerance. What I mean is you choose with how much information is enough information to make a decision. You’ve accepted that you won’t get all the details right now, and that’s ok because you probably won’t.
So what do you do?
I’d like to think a decisive leader does a few things that sets them apart from pure haste. Namely, they’re running through a few possible options:
A mental or written checklist of sorts (do I have just enough of what I need to move us a step forward?)
A set of evaluations and value judgements (is this way better than that way? why?)
And I know it seems obvious, but I’ll go ahead and state it: the more stakeholders you have or just generally the more you have at stake, it increases the complexity of the decision you have to make. And to make it even more of a doozy, a non-decision is a decision in it of itself!
Haste
Haste could be explained as the most extreme and possibly belligerent form of decisiveness. Like, sure you’re decisive, but at what cost? Haste invites recklessness and chaos. You can’t wait, you’re inpatient, so this thing has to happen now because it has to happen now. Moreover, maybe you didn’t think and you just rushed a decision.
Here’s a couple scenarios where haste could be really bad:
getting married
buying a cheese quesadilla at 11 pm on a wednesday knowing you are lactose intolerant
buying a car from a shady car salesman
You get the point. But, I want to pause here for a second. What’s the difference between being bold and haste? Sometimes there isn’t much time to assess whether now is the time. I think that they’re perhaps very much both sides of the same coin. You’re bold when the endeavor works out, but hasty when it doesn’t. And here’s yet another truth, somethings in life do require haste. I don’t think if my life was in harm’s way that I’d want a fellow passer-by to stand there and deliberate whether or not they should intervene [this is a not so subtle endorsement for walkable cities, yes]. When I’m standing in line at a restaurant [taco bell] with a friend, I do want said friend to make a choice for God’s sake [it’s really simply: Mexican pizza, bean & cheese burrito, quesadilla. pick one for crying out loud]. Wrapping up here with this part of the whimsical meditation: haste looks a lot like boldness, and they’re probably twins. there’s a time to make haste, and there’s time to deliberate.
intuition
[yeah i’ve given up on capitalizing and what not, sue me]
now this last part of the discussion is interesting to me, so what of intuition?
ngl i had to google this:
I asked chatGPT to explain it to me like im five:
it’s otherwise known as “trusting your gut,” and as you all know — you should probably all do that [ if you didn’t know, now you…]. there’s a stark difference here from just simply hasty. if being hasty were to mean you just made a decision without thinking, being intuitive is to be able to make a decision without having to think. there’s a difference here. to be hasty is to forgo thought in favor of just acting, you don’t quite know and you just do. to be intuitive is to know but not know in the way we all conventionally think about knowing.
think of it as tapping into the “force” in star wars, or the avatar state from Avatar the Last Airbender, or the way your Nonna makes a cannoli [ i have no idea why im assuming the reader, you, is Italian. but buongiorno haha get it, italics for Italians!].
wrapping up
i think good leadership requires all three. it is to know when to make haste, but to never appear it or make habit of it. Decisiveness is to be able to systemically approach a question with limited knowledge. And to be intuitive is to know without having to think, to just have a feel for things. ill probably write a better article on this topic another day, but i want to commit to pushing out work into the world even though its imperfect. hope this essay was at least fun to read.
[see you, space cowboy 🤠]
