The document summarizes a presentation by Rossella Derickson on working with intuition. Some key points: 1) Derickson is an executive coach who helps clients access their intuition through tools learned from formal training and experience. 2) The presentation agenda covers topics like how intuition manifests, when leaders need intuition, engaging one's intuition, and using intuition for decision making. 3) Derickson discusses how thoughts can "hijack" intuition and provides exercises to help participants recognize thought patterns that limit their intuition.

1. Working with Your Intuition
All Hands Meeting
Nov 12, 2010
Rossella Derickson
Rossella@Corporate-Wisdom.com
www.Corporate-Wisdom.com

2. Bio: Rossella Derickson, ICF Trained Coach
Rossella Derickson, a biochemist, has 22 years experience leading sales, marketing, and
project management teams with P&L responsibility. She is a founder and a principal in
the company www.Corporate-Wisdom.com. Over the past 5 years, organizations with
which she has worked include Cisco, Stanford University, Phoenix Technology, PARC, eGain,
Formfactor, Morrison and Foester, Santa Clara County Executive Office, Applied
BioSystems, Amgen, Kodak, and Hitachi.
Rossella brings a centered style to help clients open up to deal with challenges. She brings clarity and
problem solving approaches through tools learned through formal training and practical experience.
Rossella has translated her experience into Wisdom in the Workplace training modules to support
leadership and emotional intelligence development. She utilizes Kotter and Nadler change models,
depending upon the organization’s need for vision or business alignment. She facilitates learning
through webinar, video conferencing, telepresence and in person sessions. Rossella has launched
customized off-sites and training for multinational companies in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
Rossella holds a B.S. in Biochemistry from Rutgers University and is an ICF trained executive coach.
The speaking topics most requested include Mastering a Positive Leadership Style, Tools for Emotional
Competence and Improving Business Intuition. She is a gifted intuitive, having studied Aikido with
Robert Nadeau, a student of Aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba.
Rossella is a Director of the South Bay Organizational Development Network - www.SBODN.com and
a recent author of "Awakening Social Responsibility, A Call to Action." For more info:
www.CSRAction.com. 2

3. W is d o m i n t h e W o r k p l a c e
C o n s u ltin g , T r a in in g , a n d C o a c h in g
S e n io r E x e c u tiv e P r o g r a m s T e a m M o d u le s W is d o m S e r ie s S u s ta in a b le P r o g r a m s A s s e s s m e n t & O D W o rk
E x e c u t iv e T e a m C o a c h in g D e v e lo p in g D ir e c t R e p o r ts C o r e C o m m u n ic a t io n S k ills D e v e lo p in g S u s t a in a b le S t r a t e g ie s E m b r a c in g a n d
S u s t a in in g C h a n g e
I n d iv id u a l C o a c h in g B u ild in g a C o h e s iv e T e a m C o n f lic t R e s o lu t io n A s s e s s Y o u r C S R P ro g ra m M e r g e r I n t e g r a t io n
S k ill s
C r e a t in g Y o u r M a n a g e m e n t S t y le B u ild in g W is e T e a m s M a n a g in g Y o u r C S R P r o g r a m P ro c e s s Im p ro v e m e n t
O n P u rp o s e
R u n n in g E f f e c t iv e M e e t in g s M a n a g in g w it h W is d o m T e a m B u ild in g f o r G o o d " R ig h t s iz in g " F a c ilit a t io n
L e a d in g w it h V is io n
A c c e s s in g I n t u it io n a n d C r e a t iv ity C o a c h in g S k ills f o r M a n a g e rs G r e e n T e a m F a c ilit a t io n
3

4. Working with Your Intuition - Agenda
• How Does Intuition Manifest?
• When Do Leaders Need Intuition?
• How Intuitive are You?
• Engaging Your Intuition
• Hijacking Thoughts
• NeuroScience: Pre-Frontal Stress Vs. Milky Way Intuition
• Labeling and Re-Appraisal
• Intuitive Empathy
• The Heart / Mind
• Decision Making With Intuition
• Circles of Change Using Intuition
• Flow / Close

5. Intuition Defined
 Comprehension without the use of
reasoning.
 Intuitive information is not received by
your 5 senses.
 It sometimes comes in the form of
symbols.
 Intuition is a “physical state.” Laura Day,
author of Practical Intuition, states that the
normal, waking cognitive “filters” are
down. Then we use our rational mind to
interpret the impression.

6. How Does Intuition Manifest?
 Gut feeling - feeling in the body
 Mindperception - Ability to put all the information
together without all the “facts,” quantum leap
 Audio
perception - Hearing the meta-messages when
someone is speaking
Exercise:
Ancient Chinese divination tool:
• Think of a dilemma.
• Toss the coin.
• What is your emotional response?

7. When Do Leaders Need Intuition?
Ron Schultz, in Unconventional Wisdom,
interviewed what he termed “twelve
remarkable innovators.” In their own
words, they explained how intuition can
revolutionize decision-making.
When is intuition most helpful to
leaders?
 when there is insufficient data, or not
enough time to gather the data
 when there is too much information, or
the data is conflicting
 when data seems to support several
options equally

8. How Intuitive Are You? Check-in
 How intuitive are you (on a good day)?
 How intuitive are you (under pressure)?
 How do you use intuition at work?

9. The Mind Set
to Engage Intuition
Being
Curious
Open
Calm

10. Engaging Your Intuition
Intuition is goal directed. It’s
activated by a question asked
consciously or unconsciously.
Intuitive information sometimes
comes in the form of symbols.
Exercise:
Your eye will be drawn to see what you
need to see; to know what you need to
know….
Am I on the right track with my career?
My intuition guides me …

11. Developing Core Beliefs
Unstructured
Structured
How do we lose our natural open and intuitive state?

12. Hijacking Thoughts
How many of your 168 hours were lost this week?
Hrs / week Hrs / week
Being better than _______ Telling untruths ______
Being not as good as _______ Thinking about revenge ______
Being pessimistic _______ Thinking of enemies ______
Judging yourself _______ Thinking of lost opportunities ______
Pleasing friends _______ Thinking of resentments ______
Pleasing people at work _______ Trying to control others ______
Pleasing your family _______ Thinking about how unfair
Regretting old failures _______ things are ______
Replaying old hurts _______ Worrying about what
Replaying conversations _______ might happen ______
Exercise: What thoughts hijack you and your intuition?

13. Belief Systems & Blind Spots
 Positive Beliefs: You expect (and Coaching
believe) that you can achieve a
certain outcome. That belief guides
you to attain your goal. Stress/ Trigger Thought
Change
 Negative Belief Systems: Learned
patterns of defensive reasoning
whose purpose is to help us avoid
the appearance of vulnerability and Limiting Belief
incompetence.
 Blind spots represent the
unconscious (and often obsolete and
destructive) belief that is operating
behind the scenes.
Learned Defense Reaction
 At our core, we have a very old
story that we tell ourselves based on
our experiences and perceptions.
Repetitive patterns are clues.

14. This is Your Brain
During
hijacking
thoughts.
Adrenaline can
do that to you.

15. The Pre-Frontal Cortex & the Milky Way
 If the capacity of the prefrontal cortex is
equivalent to a single cubic foot, the
rest of the brain's capacity would be the
equivalent of the Milky Way galaxy.
 Rock notes that complex problems are
rarely solved via working memory in the
prefrontal cortex. Here thoughts spin
in repetitive patterns.
 Using the "Milky Way" part of the brain,
we can insert an idea and then walk
away. Often this "big and intuitive
part of the brain" will solve the problem
for us while we do something else.
Consider those insights you got at the
gym, in the shower....
Neuroscience Research
David Rock, www.neuroleadership.org

16. Release Emotion / Increase Intuition
Suppress
People feel your suppressed feeling
even when you think they are hidden.
Suppression reduces the ability of the
pre-frontal cortex to process
information.
Express
It’s an illusion that anger is cathartic-
anger begets anger. Upset and anger
set off biochemical stress responses
(increase heart rate, etc)

17. Stop Pre-Frontal Cortex "Spin"
Label and Re-Appraise
 Labeling  Dyad Exercise
Naming the feelings that
have occurred and looking What thoughts "spin" in your
at them from a distance mind and distract you?
often allows the brain to
relax and to feel a sense of Label the feeling
control and therefore calm. associated with the thought
disturbance of the conflict.
 Re-Appraisal See it from a distance.
Looking at a difficult or
threatening situation and Or - reappraise and find a
redefining it's meaning new interpretation of the
allows the threat to reduce high level disturbance of the
and new neurotransmitters conflict.
to connect to future states
that are more positive.

18. Mastering Your Mind
Neuroplasticity
 Dogma for decades that
the brain did not develop
new circuits…fixed wiring
 Over last few decades
proved untrue
 Brain reorganizes itself
throughout life
 Stimulation changes brain
structure

19. Intuitive Empathy
 We can’t really know what’s going on until we stop
running and connect first with ourselves and then with
others.
 Ordinary empathy is sympathizing with a
friend.
 Intuitive empathy is the capacity to
energetically merge with others and see life
(positively and negatively) through their eyes,
and sense the world through their feelings.
 It becomes difficult to distinguish these
sensations from your own, sometimes
throwing you off center.
Dr. J.Orloff, M.D. Second Sight

20. Heart and Mind
Calming Both "Brains"
 The mind “seems to be a non-stop
talking machine with a constant
barrage of endless thoughts, ideas,
concepts, meanings, memories,
plans, apprehensions, doubts, and
repetitions. David Hawkins, author of
Power vs. Force, states most of us
want anything rather than silence.
 “One thing is obvious – the mind is
totally unreliable…
 Heart generates electric field 40-60X
stronger than brain. And can be
measured 8 feet away from body.
Reflective Practice: Breathe deeply in a
rhythmic fashion. Imagine you can breathe
into your heart. Recall a positive experience
that brings forth a positive emotion.

21. Decision-Making With Intuition
Using Intuition to Decide on a Course of Action
Exercise:
Think of a situation you are grappling with.
Define the situation clearly.
Think of 2 possible solutions.
Take a deep breath. Close your eyes. RELAX.
Imagine a jacket, and associate the jacket with one of the possible solutions to
the situation you are grappling with.
How does the jacket fit? How does it feel?
Put on the second jacket. How does this one fit? Feel?
What is your intuition telling you?

22. Using Your Intuition – Circles of Change
This is an opportunity to work with writing and symbols – using your intuition.
Intuition at Work:
Using your intuition, what changes do you forecast at work for the coming
year? Write down ideas on the handout that represent future organizational
change.
Personal Intuition:
Using your intuition, what do you forecast for yourself in the coming year?
On the handout, intuitively draw a symbol that represents your personal journey
or describe (writing) your thoughts about your personal journey.
Share in Groups:
- Discuss the changes you predict with the people near you.

23. Connecting Intuition
Intuition at Work
Personal
Intuition

24. Are You and Your Team in the Flow?
High Anxiety Adapted from Finding Flow -
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Flow
Low challenge, high
Challenges
skills = bored
High challenge, low
skills = anxiety
Appropriate challenge,
Boredom strong skills = optimal
state of flow
High
Low
Skills

25. Flow – Set the Intention
 Being at the right place at the
right time. Knowing what is
next.
 Being awake to possibilities
without distraction.
 Having a clear question and
trusting the “effortless flow.”
Quote by Oprah Winfrey: Find the flow and follow it. You can’t go
wrong. Even if you’re in a situation where you are uncomfortable or
out of place, don’t try to swim against the current. Change direction.
Find the flow and follow it.
Intention: If I followed my deepest intuition I would…