How do experts ( firemen, ER docs, jet fighter pilots) make instantaneous decisions? How valid is flying by the seat of their pants as CEO’s are wont to do?

That emotions and instinctive reactions are seated in two parts of our brain that are close to each other (the amygdala and the hypothalamus) and that is consistent with their role as the frontline defense mechanisms – quick pattern recognition.

Then, at the opposite end, reached after a longer pathway to the outer parts of the brain, are the slower intellectualized abstractions – the MBA and scholarly decision analysis models – that the prefrontal cortex builds from knowledge and experience.

If you are proposing a major shift vis-a-vis a prospect’s current “model”, you’ll have to create a pain or discomfort first – a gap between what she deems as desireable, versus where she is.

The guards at the frontgate, our emotions and lizard-like instincts, will resist major intrusions – i.e., inconsistencies with the caricatures stored as friend or foe patterns. Think of your 87 year old father-in-law’s incredulous look when you propose an Ipod to replace all his slides and vinyl records. That is a displacement at a generic level.

Those same “guards” will let pass through, those they recognize as ordinary citizens – e.g., product features i.e., you can sell on features of an Apple Ipod versus a Zune only if you have sold him on the major structural shift first, that he is to abandon his 35mm projector and his turntable. Technical analyses are by their nature objective, “reasonable”, etc. What was a gut-wrenching decision for you, once made and given out, would then become an objective parameter to your lower-level managers.

Note, though, that if that’s tied to their performance evaluations, then it has a personal impact that triggers anxieties. And feelings often can’t be helped – but if recognized, they can be properly managed.

So don’t dismiss emotions as fluff. You know where that got you the last time you forgot an important anniversary date with your wife. They are a real part of your mental processes, and they can be stronger than the cognitive.

There is a reason the brain stores these caricatures.