Are you the first person to consider the role of intuition in business decision-making?

I'm certainly not the first to look at the role of intuition in business decision-making. But they only look at cognitive intuition. We're certainly the first to look at what you might call an electro-physiological explanation for components of intuition. I have to keep emphasising that what we're looking at is not just intuition, because intuition does, in fact, take into account what happens in the brain and the process of cognitive analysis.

Have you applied the model to a set of managers rather than entrepreneurs for comparison?

That's the next experiment. We used serial entrepreneurs, because they have to use intuition. Entrepreneurial decision makers are never given all the facts. They have to operate in an environment of uncertainty. We have another tool which was developed in the UK. It doesn't use electro-physics. It's a simple index. Using pencil and paper, subjects are asked to answer a series of questions. It measures the propensity of the subject to think intuitively or to think analytically. The span is one to 76. Extremely analytical is 76, while totally intuitive is one. Business managers typically come out, with a mean of 43. The serial entrepreneurs score a mean of 23. By choosing to research entrepreneurs, initially, we can monitor a group of people who are likely to think intuitively and because electro-physical signals are very faint, this groups of subjects is likely to generate stronger signals that can be detected.

Have you encountered any scepticism or opposition to your research?

If I am to be honest, whenever I talk to entrepreneurs, they are excited. They almost always say, "'This makes sense to us. Intuitively, it makes sense, so how can we find out more. We want to support it.' But whenever I speak to hard headed cognitive academics they say, "'Can't happen.' Now that intrigues me. Academics and researchers should be wanting to explore new ideas, not shut them off. But because it doesn't fit the norm, they say, "'Uh-uh,' naughtily. The people who actually practice intuitive decision making are the ones that are really encouraging us to do more and more. The academic process knocks creativity out of you. We've become so imbued with what I call linear thinking. But we've forgotten that life is not linear -' it's a complex holistic system. And, you know what? It all comes back to physics. Newton discovered the laws of mechanics and they are correct to a certain level of magnitude. But then, just over a hundred years ago, they discovered the need for uncertainty, called quantum physics or quantum mechanics. The resistance to quantum mechanics was enormous, because it did not say what linear thinking said. Now, without quantum physics we wouldn't be able to understand theoretically what's happening in intuition.

What lead you to this particular area of entrepreneurship? Has your background in engineering assisted?

Now, I'm a bit keen to say my gut lead me to these studies, but I won't say that (laughs). I've always had a very Christian background, where one always talked about prayer and things like that. And I've always wondered, "'How does this work?' It's not magic surely. And then, as a result of getting educated in the quantum side of things, as an engineer, and coming to understand the way energy transmits and is absorbed, the way energy can carry information, which is part of the universal activity of life -' because life is energy, that's all it is -' I began to wonder whether the comments I mentioned about "'gut feel' could be related.

Where do you believe this research will take you?

Once we understand what it is that makes somebody better at what they're doing, we can then develop master classes, special courses, training things, activities which enhance that capacity to make decisions more reliably. That's what gets me excited.

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