Snap Judgment: Predicitve Intelligence

Predictive intelligence is the ability to “see” the outcome (for better or worse) of various decisions and judgments. The business writer Eileen Shapiro, who introduced the concept of predictive intelligence, originally used the term in the context of corporate leadership and investment management. It can also have a much wider application – but as the decision-making environment grows larger, so does the volume of information and the number of possible outcomes. Having a vast amount of information is good, of course -- but here as elsewhere in life, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

Today, with online access to virtually unlimited data, quality of information is more important than quantity. But, like finding a needle in a haystack, identifying quality information can take time, and in many situations time is simply not available. That’s when “snap judgments” have to be made.

Making those judgments can be very uncomfortable for people whose primary skill is sifting through large amounts of data. They can be tempted to delay decisions while studying the data – or even to wait for more data until an absolutely perfect, incontrovertible judgment can finally be made.

But perfection should not be the goal. In fact, perfection can’t be the goal in time-sensitive situations. When a snap judgment is called for, you’ve got to erase the concept of “great” from your mind. Now there’s only “good enough” – and good enough is, well, good enough.

Once a good enough snap judgment has been made, the concept of predictive intelligence needs to blend with what the psychologist Daniel Goleman calls emotional intelligence. This has been defined as “the ability to monitor your own feelings and those of other people; to correctly identify emotions and to act accordingly, using emotions as sources of information to guide thinking and behavior.”

In other words, if you’re angry at someone, you know you’re angry and you don’t delude yourself into passive aggressive behavior. If you have a setback in your career or your personal life, you neither ignore it nor do you see it as the end of the world. You know what you’re feeling and you take those feelings for what they’re worth, not less and not more.

So let’s assume that you understand both predictive and emotional intelligence. With the tools that were available, you’ve made the best possible decision. It may not turn out perfectly, but there’s a fighting chance that it will be good enough. And you still have work to do. You’ve made your judgment, and now you need to live with your judgment. You need emotional intelligence to not second guess yourself. You need maturity to follow through on the decision you’ve made. Through your own actions, you create and inhabit the outcome you predicted.

Wayne Gretzky may have been the greatest hockey player of all time -- but if you were deciding whether to sign him up early in his career, the judgment might not have been as easy as you think. The “data” on Gretzky – his speed, his strength, his size – was good but not great. He wasn’t really tops at anything. Maybe you would have waited for more data. Maybe you would want to put him through some more drills. But what if another team was eager to sign him? Would you let him get away because his talent wasn’t sufficiently documented? Would you do that in order to cover your ass for your boss? Or would you realize that certain kinds of talent can’t be quantified with a stopwatch or a scale.

As Gretzky himself has put it, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." Every judgment is a risk, and risks can be scary. You will never have a chance for your predictive and your emotional intelligence to operate if avoiding risk is your primary objective.