Sensors and Intuitors – what is the difference?

Sensors

Some of us are attracted most towards matter-of-fact, concrete information. They will tend to be anchored more in ‘the here and now’ than the future, and be pragmatic. People like this are described as Sensors.

Sensors would probably describe themselves as practical. Sensors like detail and are attracted to facts. They operate very much in the now and are more interested in facts than in possibility. They like order, and tend to have rules about how things should be done. In that sense they are quite conservative and the fact that ‘it has always been done this way’ can be a compelling argument for them. They will generally rather change by evolution rather than revolution, adapting something they are already doing to solve a new problem rather than coming up with something altogether novel. Generally the way things should be done is their way, and they can be quite judgmental and unforgiving if this doesn’t happen.

Sensors tend to be systematic (not necessarily organised), in that they like to start from a given point and build sequentially from there. They acquire information  inductively i.e. Starting with a detail and building up to the big picture.

Intuitors

Some of us are more attracted to possibility. They will love ideas more than hard facts and will be more imaginative than practical.

People such as these are called Intuitors. Intuitors don’t much like detail, they find it boring. They look for possibilities in situations and are more concerned with patterns and the relationships between things. They will tend not to have rules about things, and will often appear to make things up as they go along. This can lead to them repeating the same mistake again and again because they are so focused on something else that the mistake only registers as a minor irritant and not something to focus on enough to make a rule about.

I remember giving a lecture once when, over the course of an hour, I tripped over the flip chart stand times without once thinking of moving it or me to avoid it happening again because my focus was so on what I was talking about.

Intuitors gain information deductively i.e. They start with the big picture and then build the detail if they have to.

Misunderstandings between Sensors and Intuitors.

This difference between chunking up and chunking down can lead to profound differences in communication styles.

With one being attracted to ideas and possibilities and the other to facts and the here and now, it is easy for two people of the opposite types to label each other as ‘having their head in the clouds’, or being ‘a stick in the mud’.

Your little grin that was cute at the beginning of the relationship when your foibles were pointed out rapidly becomes a trigger for a heated listing of all your shortcomings, usually suffixed with …”I don’t know why I bother.” Pretty soon he/she won’t and there goes another relationship.

If an intuitor is going from A to G, and when they get to C they figure out the way, they will probably skip straight to G, missing out D,E, and F. Sensors, on the other had, will go to D,E, and F anyway just in case there is something there that they might need.

From an Intuitors point of view Sensors can like information seemingly for the sake of it. Susan started studying for a qualification in canine psychology. Before she got started she went out and bought just about every book on the market, just in case they were useful. When she got into gardening the same thing happened. Most she never even opened.

Ask a sensor for information and you can forget the Readers Digest abridged, they will give you everything they know. Ask an Intuitor the same question and you will tend to get the summary, which may just be the “Yes/No”, “Good/Bad” kind of thing. It doesn’t mean the first is boring/pedantic/verbose, or that the latter is being obscure/evasive/secretive, they are just approaching the question from different ends of information sorting.

One of the major things to understand about Intuitors is that to motivate them they must have a reason. They must know ‘why’.

Again the division is clear cut. 75% of the population come out as predominantly Sensor, with 25% as Intuitors.