he present is about rapid change. The future is full of unknowns. Depending on one's world view, using our innate intuition helps us to cope with conditions of uncertainty that can seem frightening, restricting, or challenging. Though some people are uncomfortable with the word intuition, they willingly use popular metaphors such as "gut feeling," hunch, or instinct.

Michael Munn, Ph.D. is comfortable with naming and using his intuition. As a former aerospace chief scientist for Lockheed, Munn is an award-winning engineer who has managed multi million dollar covert projects. He and his teams have worked on tough technical problems for which there were no textbooks because they worked at the cutting edge of discoveries. One example is their program aimed at stopping Russian nuclear bombs in space. Munn credits their success to the use of brief meditative periods throughout the day so that they had time to listen to their intuitions. Munn says, "How do I know the answers are there? I see pictures or movies or dreamlike sequences. I have an immediate inner knowing that this is the answer for which I was waiting. My intuition lets me know, 'This is it!'''

Among its many definitions, intuition is called the act or faculty of knowing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition. Another definition is the capacity for guessing accurately; sharp insight. Precursors include the Latin "intueri," to look at or toward, contemplate; the Middle English "intuycion," contemplation; the Latin and French roots, in -- inside and tuicion -- to watch, guard, protect. Intuition is an unconscious, specialized source of information which thousands of years ago people understood as a source of protection. Intuition is knowing without knowing how you know.

Joel Levey, Ph.D. of InnerWork Technologies, Inc. describes intuition as direct, unmediated knowing which functions in a realm prior to thought and is different from thinking. Levey maintains that if we learn to listen deeply enough, intuition will reveal significant, profound insight into any question we hold in mind.

Gary Zukav, who wrote The Dancing Wu Li Masters, An Overview of the New Physics and Seat of the Soul, speaks of nonphysical guidance which always prompts you to your highest goals, the goals of your soul. That, Zukav maintains, is intuition.

Through a willingness to combine intuition and reason, intuitive people appear to have some life advantage. Edith Jurka, M.D. asserts that intuitive persons have a sense of more ultimate control and advantages in life because intuition and right brain functioning add creativity, humor, and the ability to solve problems, to reach goals and to manage people more effectively.

Intuitive messages come in numbers of ways. They can come through the brain's limbic system or neo-corex when you experience a hunch, visualize a symbolic image, have a relevant dream, have a wholistic "aha" moment, or gradually become aware of a correct path among previously divergent ideas. They can be expressed through the body when you experience a tightness in one or more definitive body areas, when you notice a distinct change in energy, when you hear a helpful directive or have specific awareness of changed feelings in a situation. They can originate in the outside world such as happens with a (Jungian) synchronicity, an unavoidable experience that leads to a new and right fit opportunity, or a convergence of options into a single specific one.

About two months after her husband's death, a friend suggested to Kathy Whitmire that she run for city controller of Houston, Texas. Whitmere attests to knowing immediately that she would do so and that political office would be a big part of her life. Acting on that intuition, she quit her job at the University of Houston and closed her CPA office to run for city controller. Later, from 1983-1991, she served as Houston's first female mayor and is now a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist is credited with having said, "It is fashionable stupidity to regard everything one cannot explain as a fraud." In a similar vein, well regarded author and management scholar Henry Mintzberg maintains that it isn't possible to assess the use of intuition by purely logical processes: "It is a subconscious process, which no one really understands, except by certain of its characteristics (such as the speed with which it can sometimes produce answers.) Thus the dismissal of intuition as an irrational process is itself irrational, just as embracing it as a process superior to formal logic is itself illogical."

The human brain is the vehicle for intuition. You can develop intuitive skills just as you can develop analytical ones. You just do it differently. Our need isn't logic or intuition, however. It isn't either or, it's both. Because situations in which managers operate are often chaotic, rational forms of decision making are often impossible, and managers fall back on their intuition. Some managers, however, admit to how important intuition is.

Consider Colin Powell's comments in My American Journey, "Dig up all the information you can, then go with your instincts. We all have a certain intuition, and the older we get, the more we trust it...I use my intellect to inform my instinct. Then I use my instinct to test all this data. Hey, instinct, does this sound right? Does it smell right, feel right, fit right?"

Peter Senge, in The Fifth Discipline, argues strongly, "People with high levels of personal mastery do not set out to integrate reason and intuition. Rather, they achieve it naturally-as a by- product of their commitment to use all the resources at their disposal. They cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition, or head and heart, any more than they would choose to walk on one leg or see with one eye."

For more than a decade, Michael Ray, PhD. has taught Personal Creativity in Business as a course in Stanford's MBA program. Business giants participate as guest lecturers and subjects of case studies for the course. Dr. Ray has found that the success or failure of intuition in business varies with the people and reasons for bringing intuition consciously into organizations. Crisis situations most often force people to resort to intuition.

Dr. Ray relates five truths about intuition, truths that he's found many business people initially have difficulty accepting. Dr. Ray maintains, however, that as people begin to live with these truths, they begin to develop their intuition in remarkable ways-in business and in life. His five truths are:

1. Intuition must be developed. Each of us has intuition within us, but we must accept the responsibility for our individual style of intuition and its development.

2. Intuition and reason are complements. It is the combination of reason, experience, information and intuition that is so powerful.

3. Intuition is unemotional. It is paying attention clearly to the most appropriate alternative that comes from the creative Essence.

4. Intuition requires action. Follow-through is key to successful use of intuition in business. It requires timely hard work.

5. Intuition is mistake free. There will always be "rational" reasons to support intuitive leaps. Beyond this we must have absolute faith that the intuitive part of us does not make mistakes.

Those who accept the use of intuition in business do so in many ways. It is used in decision making, in product development, in stress management, in team building, in worker relationships, and in multiple other ways. As people begin to see work as a place for human, personal development, they begin to see deep intuition as key to that growth. They begin to use intuition to uncover and actualize the limitless potential of their lives.

Intuition is the birthright of each of us. It's hardwired as a function or our humanity. To use intuition to its fullest requires attention to its growth and development

Using your intuition is about using more of your brain's potential. It is also about using more of your body and spirit. Proof of intuition as brain power is abundant, as a total body function is growing, and as spiritual functioning is more tenuous but being successfully subjected to increasingly rigorous research.

As you read, you'll find a number of suggestions to take you beyond whatever level of intuition you now recognize. None of the data upholding the veracity of intuition as developmentally possible will be presented here. Your own experience with intuition is far more convincing than the reams of research available.

If you scoff at the whole idea of intuition, then the first thing you need to do, for a bit, is suspend your disbelief. That idea has been suggested often by Joseph McMoneagle. Though Joe worked in military intelligence for a number of years, he now speaks and writes about remote viewing -- the ability, regardless of the normal boundaries of time and space, to correctly perceive and describe (under conditions of strict scientific controls) detailed information about a remote place, person, or thing. Himself a subject of extensive research, Joe is now acknowledged as one of the best remote viewers in the field, viewers employed by organizations around the world. Find that hard to believe? For a while, suspend your disbelief.

Let yourself believe in the possible. Rather than live in denial, challenge what you may have been told or taught. Begin accepting things as possible until proven impossible. You may not have ridden a bicycle the first time without falling, but you believed you could, and so you kept on working at it until you could ride. Recognizing, using, proving, and developing your intuition may be no different. Like so many other things about human functioning, "Use it, or lose it"; "Don't try, do."

You'll receive intuitive messages in any of a number of ways. Through the mind, you may receive something specific or perhaps a gradual clarification of a complicated situation -- which can demand great patience. The form delivered by the mind may include hunches, dreams, symbols, visions, sounds, tastes, emotions, smells, or an awareness of the flow of events. Through the body, you may experience shifts in energy, noted changes in feelings, or muscular reactions. You may also experience intuitions through experiences you don't initiate, what Carl Jung called synchronicities.

Belleruth Naperstek, a psychotherapist and nationally recognized pioneer in the field of guided imagery and intuition, encourages you to check in with your best friend and ally -- your body. The key when asking your body to respond to yes or no questions you pose is paying attention to subtle cues.

Generally yes responses will be felt as subtle expansion, a comfortable gentle release somewhere inside. When your body is telling you no, however, you may get a tightening, a contraction, or a holding back. Try it. If it takes you a while to recognize your body's response, don't be discouraged. Once you have learned, you will have a serious and valuable ally in your business or personal life.

Test thoughts or feelings that unexpectedly appear. Begin simply. When you find yourself thinking about colleagues, friends, or relatives, call to see if they're thinking of you. Often you'll find they are or were the day before or just had a dream about you. Acting on a "hunch" or "gut feeling" with success leads to less hesitancy in doing so again. By using insights, you get reinforcement, and from reinforcement you get strength for using intuition. Test more compelling intuitions than thoughts of friends. If you enjoy keeping a journal or list, write down your experiences that you consider intuitive. Being able to recall your successes keeps your fears or disbelief suspended and lets you keep on growing. Keeping track of your intuitive "hits" tends to turn even the most skeptical into believers, and tracks the improvement of those who already believe in their intuition.

Inge Lillie's intuitive hits have proven quite remarkable. She's been the subject of statistical tracking by graduate students at schools in California. Her accuracy level far exceeds the 80+ percentage range. Now her financial forecasts are available only by subscription.

Use your breathing as a way to still intruding thoughts and sensory interference. Intuition bubbles up from within and can be overwhelmed by old mental or emotional "tapes" and by external stimulation. Focusing on your breath may help. Some people prefer the gentle pulsing of a shower, the sound of the waves at the beach, or the first quiet, drowsy moments of the day. As you learn to recognize your intuition, you'll experience it breaking through even the most distracting of noises. Relax and recognize your intuition, however it comes. Resist the impulse to concentrate. Be attentive but not intense. Playfulness and relaxation usually stimulate the intuitive process.

Read in areas you have not read before. Attend classes or seminars on intuition. Listen to tapes. Find a friend who will act as a non-ridiculing sounding board for you. No one achieves as well in a negative environment as in a positive one. Believing in yourself and the power of your intuition is a powerful stimulus for continuing development. Your intuition will work for you in a variety of ways, and it will work your way. Techniques for developing intuition can be generic, but your response will be specific to you. Your intuition is as unique to you as your fingerprint.

In organizations that encourage creativity, intuition has a better chance to flourish. Using intuitive insight to balance logic and analysis is whole-brain thinking. To do less is to short circuit the system. Knowledge and experience are complemented by intuition. For example, Sandy Koufax struck out Mickey Mantle with a surprise pitch and won the World Series. Donald Peterson, CEO at Ford, followed his intuition to produce the Taurus, America's best selling car. Eleanor Freide insisted that Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a children's book, be published for adults. And your intuition? In what ways has it worked for you?

In an organizational setting, you may find that you use different words to represent intuition. You may be saying you have a hunch or gut feeling rather than saying you have an intuition about something. Some say, "I sense there may be more to this situation than the data reveal." However you state it, until you use and encourage others to use their intuition, you're thwarting the limitless potentials that are our birthrights.

As you note you're increasingly intuitively accurate, you may be willing to embrace the demonized word psychic, derived from early Greek which is translated "of the mind" or "of the spirit." You'll find you're able to use your intuition for clear and loving inner guidance and for helping others. Tell your stories to encouraging others; listen to theirs.

A personal story, one among a multitude, one I'm sure mirrors many of yours, happened in October 1992. On a plane to Phoenix, Arizona, I chatted with the engineer seated next to me. Yes, we were each on a business trip -- that sort of thing. His questions gave me the chance to talk a little about the linkage of intuition and creativity and about my perception of their role in global competitiveness. He made several positive, similar comments.

Because of his encouraging comments and with his consent, I risked telling him what I sensed about him: a large brown bear rearing on its hind legs in front of him. He hadn't seen one lately -- live or in a museum. I attempted bringing more focus to the bear, but could only tell him that I thought it was probably symbolic. I told him I did not sense the bear was going to maul him and that I sensed more that he, the man next to me, would take control through his own assertiveness and, therefore, the bear would not present an insurmountable danger. When we deplaned, the man said he'd let me know if he figured out the symbolic (or real) meaning of the bear, whether personal or business related.

About three weeks later the phone rang, and it was the engineer who had sat by me on the plane. When he returned from Phoenix, he went with his wife to a physician. Her health had given her cause for concern, and she had had some tests done which were less conclusive than they had hoped. The results of those tests did not lessen their concern or give them direction for treatment or cure. It was at that point that the engineer said he remembered the bear, rising in front of him, threatening his life. He told me he remembered I had suggested his assertiveness kept the bear at bay. It was then, he told me, he insisted the next level of tests be done and done immediately.

The physician acquiesced. More tests were run, and a small operable brain cyst was diagnosed. Immediate surgery was scheduled. When I talked to him after the surgery, his wife was doing very well.

When he thanked me, the tears rolled down my face. Thanked me? Thanked me! I had risked telling him of an intuitive/psychic image that came to me...was given to me...was projected by him...was somehow there. I risked a picture story. He and his wife risked much more.

Powerful experience; even more powerful, positive intuitive/psychic reinforcement. Check it out. Get feedback. Grow. Be strong. Take risks. You are developing a gift that has been given to each one of us. And, as you check things out, you're also developing the gift of discernment. You're increasing your own capacity to be responsible for and to yourself -- to use your body, mind, spirit, self to the fullest.