Intuition in the Age of Analytics

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Today, we're going to penetrate what's surely the point of greatest contention between artificial and natural intelligence.

We're going to talk about intuition in the age of analytics.

Chances are, you don't know who Alexander Fleming was or who discovered penicillin.

Now you know both.

But Fleming's discovery, one of the most civilization-changing events ever, and certainly one of the top ten most important inventions and discoveries ever, is a story about more than just bacteriology or medicine. listen.

It's about intuition and where that can take us if we would just let it, especially now when decision-making is so sternly, tyrannically dictated by analytics and metrics.

Fleming, who lived from 1881 to 1955, was a British bacteriologist with a keen, intuitive sense Renowned for original observation In other words, he saw things others did not It's simple He recognized the unusual He was also a technical mastermind But that, history affirms, was second only to his intuition Case in point On September 3rd, 1928 Fleming spotted something highly unusual in a Petri dish in his lab in a famous photo there is on one side of the dish a large amorphous blob on the other side a highly populated colony of bacteria and in between an area of almost nothing something, kind of a demilitarized zone of sorts.

What struck Fleming, a purely observational occurrence at first, led to a question.

What was it about that large mold that enabled it to prevent the advancement of that colony of bacteria?

As it turns out, the mold, Penicillium notatum, was inhibiting and repelling the growth of a colony of Staphylococcus aureus.

Long story short, Fleming had just discovered penicillin.

Although it was technically not the first antibiotic it instantly made the field and the product a phenomenon and it took only three years three years by 1931 penicillin was commercially viable globally and life on this planet had changed thanks to the intuition of one man again, Alexander Fleming.

Now, how did this story go from situation to curiosity to creativity to innovation?

Simple.

There was nobody to get in Fleming's way. Nobody insisted that work could not be done without database permission.

Nobody supplanted his hunch with doubt.

Nobody told him we've never done that before granted Fleming had a reputation for sharp insights and meticulous experimentation practices meticulous to the point where that blob and that colony of bacteria hadn't been there before he left a week earlier for a brief vacation he normally would have cleaned up his petri dish, his counter, and come back to a clean lab. He did not. And he at first was a little upset that he had left such a mess until he started to realize he had something to look at.

Over the last quarter century, aside from doing career coaching, for which I was most widely identified, I provided leadership advisory to corporate clients in 25 industries.

The industry I served more than any other was pharmaceuticals and biotech. And when I'd get a leadership team together in one room, we'd study the Fleming story. Then I'd ask, if Alexander Fleming worked for your company today, would he discover cover penicillin? Or would there be someone, something, some preconceptions, some rules in the way?

That was inevitably a pivotal moment when the leadership team realized we weren't talking about Alexander Fleming or penicillin. We were talking about the way their company is going to move forward.

It was indeed a pivotal moment.

Years earlier, when Thomas Edison was asked what rules he established in his labs, he shouted, rules? We're trying to get something done.

To remain to this story, I refer to another bacteriologist who changed the world, Dr. Jonas Salk, who lived from 1914 to 1994, and whose intuition led to his development of the polio vaccine, which was released en masse in 1955 and became another one of the most important discoveries or inventions ever.

Sadly, just as few people recognize Salk's name and accomplishment as they do Fleming's.

I know. In 15 years of teaching a leadership course in FDU's MBA and MAS programs, a discussion of Salk always came up.

Most students from their 20s to their 60s did not previously know his name. And when you think about it, there's a reason for that.

86 % or so of people alive today never lived in a world of polio either, because Jonas Salk's discovery and invention wiped the disease out.

Salk, born and educated in New York, wound up leading a bacteriology lab at the University of Pittsburgh, where he made his breakthrough in the early 1950s.

I promise to write more widely on him soon, but as I'm starting to move forward towards the end of this episode, I must bring up something that Salk said that validates the Fleming story, explains Salk's success, and should serve as a powerful lesson for us. Whether we're looking for a job, planning a career, working within a team, or doing any individual pursuit. Salk said, intuition tells the thinking mind where to look next.

I'm going to say that one again.

Intuition tells the thinking mind where to look next. in today's world, where nobody seems brave enough to be intuitive in business, politics, investments, sports, oh my God, take time out for a second and realize how analytics has taken the beauty out of the game of baseball.

I can say that because I'm old enough to tell you that I saw Jackie Robinson play.

No doubt about it, our glaring deficiency is intuition.

Analytics alone won't inspire our next advancement.

Intuition alone may not lead to it, but the two together, irreplaceable.

As Nobel laureate Niels Bohr, who won the Nobel Prize in physics the year after Einstein did in 1922, Bohr won it in 1923.

Once retorted in a fiery debate he was having with a colleague, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical.

That's what happens when you trust and love intuition.

Now, with the bright lights of Fleming, Salk, Edison, and Bohr shining upon us, ask yourself if you would trade in your expansive intuition for the limited version of what we have today called artificial intelligence.

You know where I stand on this, and I'm sure my bet is safe on this one, and that's where we are on intuition in the age of analytics.

I'm Eli Amdur, and I approve this message.

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I'll be back in a little bit.

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Hi, everyone. I'm back. and I want to jump into the Great Minds section today and I think we'll stick with Jonas Salk who had such a profound influence on the entire world since his life.

Jonas Salk said our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.

He wasn't doing this just for the scientific glory or the thrill of the chase, Jonas Salk was a mightily altruistic man.

Most people who even know his name don't know the fact that from the time he released the polio vaccine in 1955 till the time he died in 1994, he was continuing his lifelong pursuit suit of vaccines and went out to California to found the Salk Institute in Carlsbad, whose mission was to find a vaccine and or a cure for AIDS. needs.

Think of the things that went on in Jonas Salk's mind and heart.

Intuition telling the thinking mind where to look next.

And our greatest responsibility, I just love this, is to be good ancestors.

And he also said, I've had my dreams and I've had my nightmares, but I've conquered my nightmares because of my dreams.

It would do us all well to consider the life of Jonas Salk.

For the what if section today, this is just such a simple one. It's just sitting there waiting to be used. Alexander Fleming was a neat freak.

He hated clutter. He hated disorder. He hated things that didn't make sense.

And because of that he mused over that Petri dish so the question is what if Alexander Fleming was not a neat freak what if that didn't matter to him think that went through he probably would have just in disgust picked up the dirty unruly Petri dish wash it out and go about his business for the day he did not think that one through and i'd like to give you two aphorisms to consider number one and this is so applicable in the age of analytics we can no longer depend on what we know or knew or what anyone else knows or knew we must be able to figure things out as they happen it takes guts to do but it has to be done and finally if we had to pay a fee to have an opinion a lot of people would be getting along with each other very well all of a sudden that'll do it for today thanks again with all my heart to you for listening and to being part of a growing audience.

I'm Eli Amdur. See you next time. Until then, keep questioning, keep learning, and keep thinking critically.