Photo by Jaga Bjeńkova
Matylda Gerber
Scientist and practitioner specializing in intuition and its role in decision making
About me
After completing a Double Master’s degree in Finance and Psychology, I received my PhD in Social Science with a speciality in Management at the Warsaw School of Economics. During my academic journey, I discovered a deep passion for intuition and decided to dedicate my research to exploring its role in decision-making in unstructured situations.
Throughout my career, I have studied the impact of intuition on decision-making among various professionals, including experienced police criminal intelligence analysts, medical doctors, executive search consultants, members of bank credit committees, bank analysts, successful entrepreneurs, and Polish stock market investors.
I was honored with the distinguished Gary A. Klein Award for my significant contributions to a theory on expert intuition. Moreover, my certification in managing innovation from MIT has equipped me with the necessary tools to effectively apply my research findings in practical applications.
I have recently published a popular science book on intuition, which is now available for purchase here
If you are interested in my musical activities, you can find more information about them here.
Inspirational Talk
Understanding what intuition is and how it functions enables us to harness its potential more effectively. Unlock the power of intuition in your business decisions, personal life, and innovation by ordering the inspirational talk today.
Navigating Uncertainty
Training: The role of intuition in leadership decision-making
Intuition can help leaders make quick decisions and identify patterns in situations where information or time is limited, but it can also lead to flawed decisions due to personal biases, emotions, and cognitive heuristics. Therefore, leaders need to develop three key skills: effectively using intuition, identifying and avoiding misleading intuitions, and integrating intuition with logical analysis to optimize their decision-making.
As an expert in the study of leaders' intuition, I have conducted extensive research across various professions, including IT entrepreneurs, crime department analysts, doctors, managers, and financiers. I have been recognized with the Gary A. Klein Award for my contributions to a theory on expert intuition and am certified by MIT in managing innovation.
Order a training session to enhance your intuitive abilities and learn how to apply them more effectively in your leadership role.
Your internal GPS
Training: A comprehensive guide to developing intuition for personal transformation
Through years of analyzing expert decision-makers, I have acquired invaluable insights into their techniques for effectively utilizing intuition to make sound decisions. Drawing upon my research background in psychology, I have developed a comprehensive training program designed to help individuals harness their intuition for self-development.
Order a training session, where you will learn how to leverage your intuition to unlock your fullest potential and become the best version of yourself.
Towards expertise
Accelerate the process of building expert team
Extracting expertise from the most seasoned members of an organization can prove to be a daunting task, as the majority of their decision-making processes occur unconsciously. However, with years of experience in extracting and analyzing knowledge from individuals with high decision-making proficiency, I possess the ability to extract critical skills from experts and facilitate the learning process for those with less experience.
If you find yourself lacking in specialized employees, I offer my assistance in bridging the gap. With my expertise, I can swiftly enhance your team's proficiency in essential areas.
photos by Ewa Cabaj
Projects
The following is an outline of projects, studies and proposals I have done. Please note that these are sorted in order of relevance.
How do experienced executive search consultants use their intuition to decide on whether to hire a candidate? I have discovered a decision-making path headhunters follow when having strong intuition towards a candidate. For this finding, I’ve received the Gary A. Klein Award for the best contribution to the NDM Theory.
How are experienced police criminal intelligence analysts able to solve difficult criminal cases? I have discovered a problem solving path which allows analysts to make decisions in the absence of clear facts. These are based on: intuition, leap of faith and insight. My findings were used to design a Decision Support System for analysts.
How are experienced medical doctors able to find out difficult diseases? I used the same concept which I discovered for police criminal intelligence analysts, and developed it further to match this target audience.
How are members of bank credit committees and analysts misled by intuition when assessing loan applications? - I found a few unconscious bias phenomenons that influence their process of decision-making. The findings are used to create more efficient tools to support credit granting procedures.
How to measure an entrepreneurs’ ability to properly use intuition? I’ve created a prototype tool to measure the potential of intuition.
How intuition misleads Polish stock investors? I’ve verified the occurrence of some heuristics and biases among Polish investors.
Publications
Gerber, M., Mironski, J., Wong, W. (in press). The Role of Intuition in Experts’ Decision-Making. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision-Making.
Gerber, M. (2021). How do Experts Know that their Intuition is Right? Naturalistic Study on Executive Search Consultants. Proceedings of the Naturalistic Decision Making and Resilience Engineering Symposium, Toulouse, France.
Gerber, M. (2017). Intuition leading to insight as a decision support strategy. Poster presentation on the Society for Judgment and Decision Making Conference, Vancouver, Canada.
Gerber, M. (2017). Insight Oriented Intuition as a New Negotiation Strategy. Doctoral Consortium of the 17th International Conference on Group Decision and Negotiation. M. Schoop and D. M. Kilgourv (eds), Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, 17-2017, 37-42.
Gerber, M. Szapiro, T. (2017). On Experts’ Intuition as a Supportive Mechanism in Negotiations. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Group Decision and Negotiation. 16-2017, 279-288.
Gerber, M., Wong, W. Kodagoda, N. (2017). How Analysts Think: What Triggers Insight? Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Naturalistic Decision Making, Bath, UK, 212-216.
Gerber, M., Wong, W. Kodagoda, N. (2016). How Analysts Think: Decision-Making in the Absence of Clear Facts. Proceedings of European Intelligence and Security Informatics Conference, 2016 IEEE. Uppsala, Sweden, 132-135.
Gerber, M., Wong, W. Kodagoda, N. (2016). How Analysts Think: Intuition, Leap of Faith and Insight. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society 2016 Annual Meeting. Sage, Washington D.C., 173-177.
Gerber, M. (2015). Intuitive Potential and Predicting Entrepreneurship – a Study on a New Method of Measuring Intuition. Proceedings of the International Conference on Naturalistic Decision Making, McLean, VA, USA.
Gerber, M. (2014). The Role of Psychological Biases in Investment Decision-Making Processes. Przeglad Organizacji. 4, 45-50.
Popular Press Articles
Intuition is a basic biological mechanism - how to use it? (SENS Magazine, PL) - download
The role of intuition in creating breakthrough solutions (Getty Science)
Intuition just like reason, is essential to make good decisions (Science in Poland)
How police analysts use intuition to solve criminal cases? (Getty Science)