Gut instinct plays big role in executives’ decisions, survey says

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Canadian executives are more likely to rely on gut instincts when making big decisions while also reporting that decision-making at their companies is "highly data driven," according to a new report released Thursday.

A global survey of executives sponsored by consulting firm PwC shows 73 per cent of Canadian executives said they went with their gut instinct when making their last big decision, compared with 58 per cent of executives globally. Gut instinct was given as broad definition as "intuition or experience, and the advice and experience of others."

Half of executives also reported that decision-making at their companies is highly data driven, compared with one-third globally, but also expressed a degree of skepticism about their ability to rely on data.

Philip Grosch, national leader of technology consulting services at PwC in Canada, said many executives end up relying on gut instinct because they cannot get timely data and analyze it quickly enough to make fully data-driven decisions.

He said companies are dealing with increasing volumes of data, which contain critical information but is difficult to translate into "actionable insight." Many Canadian companies are slower to invest in technology to analyze data than their U.S. peers, he added, slowing their ability to exploit the potential of big data sets.

"There's a little bit of a lag of the ability to actually mine that data and turn it into actionable insight, and that's the reason why a lot of times in the need for speed, they make decisions based on imperfect information because they don't have the time or luxury to either wait or to interpret the complexity," he said in an interview.

The survey found 63 per cent of Canadian executives and 45 per cent globally reported that relying on data has been detrimental to their organizations in the past, and 43 per cent of respondents in Canada said the "quality, accuracy and completeness" of data is the biggest hurdle to greater use of big data.

Ninety per cent of senior C-Suite executives in Canada said they have previously discounted data they didn't understand, compared to just 52 per cent globally.

Mr. Grosch said the problem for executives is not only having access to data, but also having the expertise to use it well.

The survey found 47 per cent of top-executive C-Suite respondents felt their biggest hurdle to greater use of data was a lack of skills or expertise by managers below them in their organizations.