Passage One

Many successful business executives do not follow the standard method for problem solving in business. Typically, business schools teach their students to first clarify goals, assess the problem, formulate options and estimate the chances of success before a decision. Conversely, many real world business decisions are made based on what some senior executives call intuition (直觉). They use hunches (预感) and educated guesses to manage large global companies where different departments, networks of information, and complex chains of command force today’s manager to integrate action into the process of ysis. Historically, business writers have recognized that some managers rely heavily on intuition. For the most part, however, business writers and the faculty at business schools often display a poor grasp of what intuition is and how it is used. Instead, they see it as the opposite of rationality. More recent research, however, demonstrates that executive intuition is not ’that case. Rather, executives use intuition in a number of ways. First, they intuitively sense when a problem exists. They then rely on intuition to implement well-learned responses quickly. This type of decision- process is based on years of practice, hand-on experience, and a finely practised sense of when to make a quick decision and when to wait for more information. Intuition also allows executives to make decisions based on the "big picture": a complete integrate understanding of how decisions will affect all facets of the business enterprise. In this way, some managers use intuition as a kind of "gut check" on the results of more rational ysis. Finally, in today’s fast-paced business world, intuition allows managers to make decisions quickly and effectively without relying on costly and time-consuming in-depth yses. One of the implications of this style of management is that thinking cannot be separated from acting. "I often know what the answer is even before I see the ysis,’ says one sales manager, "sometimes in business you need to cat first and explain your actions later." Given the uncertainty of many of the management issues that they face, senior managers often take a course of action simply to learn more about an issue. Action actually helps them develop a more complete understanding of the issue. With more and more companies relying on their executives to see the "big picture" and think outside the box, traditional decision- strategies may be one of the casualties () of globalization.

The author thinks that writers on management for a long time regard intuition as______.