Quietly Courageous by Gil Rendle

Author:Gil Rendle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

Expert Intuition

In learning a profession the move from competency to proficiency is described in the Dreyfus model as a stage at which one acts intuitively, without thinking, and drawing on know-how that comes from the backlog of experiences in similar settings. Experience itself becomes the teacher. Acting intuitively, in this sense, would be described by William Duggan as a form of “expert intuition.”[16] Duggan identifies different types of intuition. The most common form of intuition is “ordinary intuition,” which is a form of emotion. It is a feeling, a hunch. One just knows—and it requires no thought; one just acts, knowing. Ordinary intuition is immediate, operating in a flash. “Expert intuition” is not a feeling; it is a form of rapid thinking. It depends on recognizing something that has been encountered before and relies on experience. The response to expert intuition is also very quick because one is operating in a known situation—or at least in a situation sufficiently similar to times and places previously encountered that can inform the response. Time and experience make the difference.

In his work on what makes people successful in their work or profession, reporter and author Malcolm Gladwell acknowledges that there are some people who have natural or innate gifts for what they do.[17] It is not uncommon to hear a person described as a natural leader. Gladwell, however, uncovers that the “natural born” successful people are much more rare than one might think and that it is much more likely that they have simply worked longer and harder than most others. They have more to draw on to direct their next steps. He notes that researchers have even put a number to what it takes for expertise—ten thousand hours. Yes, he argues, The Beatles came to the United States in 1964, setting off a British Invasion with music and performances that reset the bar on pop music. What was not given attention was that they had been playing as a group for seven years beginning in 1957, in unending gigs, for mercilessly long hours, in poor conditions, and had long surpassed their ten thousand hours, making whatever they encountered in the United States feel simply like more of what they already knew (except, perhaps, for the crowd’s reactions).

So the first part of moving from simple competence to proficiency in learning a profession is simply time and experience. If you practice long enough, you get better. You also get quicker, needing less time to think about what is required and acting intuitively. Time and experience increase proficiency but are insufficient to move toward expertise. More learning is required for expertise. Time and experience must be met with disciplined inquiry of another form that requires understanding the difference between horizontal and vertical learning.

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