Canadian Government Executive - Volume 25 - Issue 04

October/November 2019 // Canadian Government Executive / 25 conundrum at the heart of the first bit of direction: Make space so your intuition can find you. You need to reorient from your go-go mentality, slowing down so you can be in touch with and even guided by the deep knowing inside. Remove yourself from your desk and interrupt your routine when struggling with a de- cision, making people know you’ll be unavailable for 30 minutes. Walk around the block. Move your body. Get present, letting your thoughts about the day slip away and immersing yourself fully in the present moment. A similarly helpful exercise is to take a breath and go within when asked a question or dealing with an issue at a meeting. Do a quick inventory of what you are feeling in the moment. Notice what stands out. Avoid reactive problem-solving. Consider what you’re feeling – what is your inner radar indicating? Doing this during a meeting can be helpful not just with the immediate quandary. “Following your inner radar can be espe- cially difficult in meetings. Yet, whenever a leader takes the time to listen to a question and really ponder it, everyone else in the room feels a sense of gravity and respect because the leader is truly considering the situation. By honouring themselves with a pause, such leaders train others to do the same,” he points out. He says there are many chances to practice pausing in a work environment. In every space you create, there is a chance to change perspective and consider new possibilities. “When we interrupt the usual mode of being, we shift our ways of think- ing and responding, and make room for the deeper intelligence within to find us,” he says. He stresses that slowing down is a surprisingly effective action step. “The paradox is: When you allow time to slow down for your intuition to find you, you arrive at a decision more quickly. By relaxing your mind and accessing your deeper consciousness, the answer is already there, waiting for you,” he says. If you’re dubious, he offers this statistic: Neuroscience shows that the subconscious mind processes 20 million environmental stimuli per second compared to 40 (yes, 40) interrupted by the conscious mind. He compares it to a 20-lane highway versus a single lane in terms of processing speed. You are connecting dots that your conscious mind can’t possibly hold. Developmental bi- ologist Bruce Lipton has said: “The subconscious mind, the most powerful information processor known, specifically observes both the surrounding world and the body’s internal awareness, reads the environmental cues, and immediately engages previ- ously acquired (learned) behaviours – all without the help, su- pervision or even awareness of the conscious mind.” So slowing web http://canadiangovernmentexecutive.ca/author/harveys/ down the conscious mind fast tracks your way to a greater infor- mation resource. The saboteur in this effort could be your inner critic. Relax and open up… and negative thoughts might flood in. He urges you to make friends with your inner critic – distinguishing it from your intuitive voice – to be successful. He notes the inner critic is only part of you, not all of you, and you should map it – considering its characteristics, when it arises, what moods, behaviours and emotions trigger it. When it is activated, pay attention, naming what is happening – this is your inner critic stirring, not your true, whole being. Understand the positive intention behind the inner critic’s prodding. What is it protecting? How can you integrate its wis- dom as you move ahead without being paralyzed by its negativ- ity? “When you can accept how it’s trying to serve you, the critic begins to disarm its grip. There is nothing to fight because you are both on the same side,” he says. Turning on your intuition is not as simple as turning on a tap. There are obstacles. It will feel uncomfortable, at least initially. But as you become more comfortable allowing your intuition to play a role at work, it will be easier. And the results, he argues, will be better than just depending on your rational mind. H arvey S chachter is a writer, specializing in management and business issues. He writes three weekly columns for the Globe and Mail and The Leader’s Bookshelf column for Canadian Government Executive, and a regular column and features for Kingston Life magazine. Harvey was editor of the 2004 book Memos to the Prime Minister: What Canada Can Be in the 21st Century. He was the ghostwriter on The Three Pillars of Pub- lic Management by Ole Ingstrup and Paul Crookall, and editor of Getting Clients, Keeping Clients by Dan Richards. The Leader’s Bookshelf “It is about having the courage to say or express what you are feeling from deep within. Intuition threatens our nice little story we have about ourselves. This is great news, because we are so much more than we believe we are.”