The author of a new book tells us why with practice our instincts can be accurate.

Does data empower us, or is it just confusing? This is a question that’s at the centre of Hunch, a new book by brand storytelling expert and consultant Ms Bernadette Jiwa. It aims to recalibrate our creative faculties by encouraging us to think beyond the spreadsheets and analytics towards more truly original (and feasible) ideas. According to Ms Jiwa, we are currently suffering from a “data obsession”, meaning that we are far more likely to fall back on the numbers than think through problems imaginatively. As an antidote to this situation, the book lays out a method – loosely inspired by the idea of a  “hunch” – for coming up with new ideas and propositions based on intuition, that is, combining past learnings with keen observation, an understanding of human nature and, most crucially, imagination. The book explains this approach with a series of case studies, featuring entrepreneurs that have used intuitive thinking to challenge big businesses with big market-research budgets, but also a series of practical exercises that aim to teach the reader how to observe more carefully, think more intuitively and, ultimately, formulate and recognise better ideas – as well as how to ask the crucial questions that lead to them. Hoping to get a little bit of personal coaching ourselves, the MR PORTER team met with Ms Jiwa in London for the below conversation.

As I define it, it’s not crystal ball gazing, it’s not predicting which six numbers are going to come up in the lottery, it’s actually a mixture of insight and foresight. It’s noticing patterns with practice, and having the ability to see potential in something.

The insight I feel is closer to home. It’s really looking around and keeping your eyes and ears open to what’s going on on the ground. Not just what’s going on in the algorithm. The thing about data is that it’s historic. It might be things that are in the past. It might be things that we already know. And it might simply be things that people are telling us, which are not always accurate. What people tell you isn’t always what they feel.

One of the things that’s really bothering me is our level of distraction, which I know is topical at the moment. And it’s easy to see, all you need to do is walk down any street, and people are multitasking and not noticing what’s going on around them. We’ve got a filter bubble, our news is curated. So we’re actually becoming less empathetic and less curious and less imaginative because of that.

Absolutely. The three things that I’m pointing to in the book that we’re neglecting are curiosity, empathy and imagination because we’re so focused on data. And the great entrepreneurs, the people that we look up to are actually the people who do that, who have become those skills in themselves. Where was the data that supported Airbnb or Google or Facebook? How did they know these ideas were going to fly? They really didn’t know, they just had to trust their guts and go.

Intuition is something you can develop, over time. And it’s about practising. It’s like anything, it’s about looking around you and looking for the stories and asking questions. That’s a thing we need to do a lot more. Two questions could be: what’s wrong and how can we fix it? What’s going on and what should be going on? We can do it by being curious, asking questions. Standing in other people’s shoes, thinking about how they feel and why they’re reacting in certain ways, why they make those choices.

Well, I might just as well ask you: is data always good? The thing about any idea, and I think that this is another place where data is tripping us up… we use it as a crutch and we think it’s proof that we’re 100 per cent certain and we should go with it. But nobody knows for sure. There’s no such thing as a surefire thing.

**Hunch: Turn Your Everyday Insights Into the Next Big Thing (Portfolio Penguin) is out now. You can learn more at the accompanying website, hunch.how **

Keep up to date with The Daily by signing up to our weekly email roundup. Click here to update your email preferences