61. Follow your intuition/ gut instinct

"Sometimes you just have to follow your intuition." Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft

If it is good enough for Bill Gates, I guess it ought to be good enough for the rest of us. Deep down inside you know when you're right, and you know when you're wrong. Sure we can cut off that inner voice, but if we do we lose touch, and then we really are in trouble. That inner intuition may not speak loud and clear all the time but when it does you'd be mad not to follow it. Trouble is your mind also speaks loud and clear - all the time -and we mix the two up and follow what we think is intuition when in fact it is fear or jealousy or another emotion.

So how do you tell? If when you're talking to somebody about a new system you are about to implement and, though they look positive, you feel an odd or cold feeling inside, heed it. Take time to think why. Tell somebody else about it and see if it happens again. Go back to the plan and look at it from all viewpoints, considering all the stakeholders. Are you still convinced? Never be too proud or too lazy to get more feedback, to find a sounding board or to rethink a proposal or a decision if you've got a bad feeling about it.

Look at previous good or bad decisions you've made. How did you feel about them at the time? Did you, deep down, know a bad course of action was flawed before you followed it? Would you know that feeling again?

Developing your intuition is a hard thing to teach, but if you make a habit of 'listening' to how you feel about something, your radar will improve and you'll begin to know when a gut feeling is telling you that something isn't right.

62. Be creative

"Almost everyone is born with the capacity to be creative, but few realize it and such skills are often neglected or untapped. Lateral thinking is all about thinking 'outside the box', breaking out of familiar thought patterns and coming up with new possibilities. It is one of the keys to improv­ing creativity." Lloyd King, lateral thinking expert, author of the best-selling Puzzles for the High IQ

The good manager keeps a store cupboard full of creative techniques so that when they get stuck, when the team gets stuck - and you and they will from time to time - you have something to fall back on.

Being creative is about finding new and different ways to solve problems. You get stuck and start worrying and then you go off and tend your garden, do some washing up, fly a kite or whatever, and you get immersed in what you are doing and answers bubble up to the surface.

Most creative techniques get you to switch off your conscious, thinking brain and start to use a deeper more intuitive part of your mind. And that part has a whole load of answers that we can't normally access. This is the part we can access during sleep or meditation or by using creative thinking techniques.

Watch what other managers do - the ones you admire and respect. They probably have a store cupboard of creative tricks. Pinch a few Read up on creative thinking techniques. Find out what the bright managers are doing, thinking, trying out. Ask somebody not in your field what they would do. Don't be afraid to be wacky or off the wall - after all some of the best ideas have come from dreams.