Are Highly Sensitive People Wired to Make Good Decisions?

I’ve been researching the question - is there a role for using intuition in making business decisions?

The conclusion is a resounding Yes, with a study in 2021 showing that using intuition in conjunction with data is more effective and quicker than using data analysis alone. This is especially true when the data is overwhelming or ambiguous.

Crucially, intuition seems more reliable when the decision makers are experienced and have expertise with the decision topic. This is the sweet spot where wisdom combines with the analysis to produce really good decisions.

So what does this have to do with Highly Sensitive People (HSPs), you may be wondering.

One of the key characteristics of a Highly Sensitive Person is the way their brain is wired to take in more information and process it more deeply. While this can sometimes become too much and lead to overwhelm, this is a remarkable ability that all HSPs have - naturally.

Noticing things that other people miss, relating these to the bigger picture. This all adds to the HSP’s insights and knowledge bank, building a store of valuable information that can later be drawn on, either as wisdom or if unconscious, to emerge at a later date as intuition.

HSPs may sometimes experience the uncanny situation where they find they know something without knowing how they know it. I believe this can partly be explained by this ability to take in information and process it deeply, which they often do unconsciously.

I suspect the other part of an HSP’s physiology – their highly responsive nervous system, also plays a role in this enhanced intuition, but that’s something to be explored in a separate article!

So, if HSPs take in more information and process it more deeply, leading to deeper intuition, it follows that when they combine this deeper intuition with the corresponding data, they’ll be able to make really great decisions.

It’s worth remembering that HSPs don’t generally respond well to working under intense scrutiny or pressure. If you give them ample time and space to do this processing though, you’ll be rewarded with truly excellent decisions.