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I'm Alison Beard, and this is the HBR Ideacast.

All right, so, Allison, when it comes to making decisions,

do you consider yourself data-driven or do you just kind of go with your gut?

A hundred percent my gut, and I know that's a very old-school way of doing things,

but when I'm deciding on an article to commission or a guest I want to have on this show or a magazine cover, I definitely think to myself, does this feel right? Do I know it's

going to work in my heart of hearts? And I trust that instinct. Well, you know, I interviewed Barry Diller

on this show not long ago. And he says he makes every decision by his gut. and if you follow any other path, you're going to make a mistake. So, I mean, to be honest, I set up kind of a false dichotomy with that question between using data and information on the one hand versus using intuition and emotion. So today we're going to talk about intuition and following your gut, but our guest, Laura Huang, doesn't make that kind of hard and fast distinction.

She says that actually when we're making a decision with intuition, it is a combination of, it is informed by our previous experience, the external data that we've gathered, you know, even if we don't realize it at the time.

So there is data even inside what feels we don't realize it at the time. So there is

data even inside what feels like gut decisions. That does make me feel better because I think we

live in this age of data and analytics. And sometimes I feel bad that I'm not looking at the

spreadsheets to make my decisions. But I think that what you're saying makes sense. I am using decades of

experience in journalism, as you do as well, to make those calls and what we think is good editorial

content. Yeah, and look, maybe that's the secret of success for people in leadership positions,

that they have an ability to rely on their gut, but that is informed by years of experience and skills and knowledge.

So today we're going to talk about how that works. There is some real science here today. It's not just a wishy-washy concept.

We will be speaking with Laura Huang, who is a professor and associate dean at Northeastern University.

She wrote the book, You Already Know, The Science of Mastering Your

Intuition. Here is our conversation.

All right, so I want to ask, you, you're deep in the field of studying what it means to

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