Does Intuiting Precede or Follow Mastery?

Grandmasters, i.e. professionals at the top of their respective fields in terms of expertise are often described as “intuitive”. This appears to be the case across domains as varied as physics, management, and haute cuisine. In scholarly literature, the process of intuiting is often positioned as a factor of, rather than a precursor to mastery. However, we suggest that intuiting and mastery represent a classic ‘the chicken or the egg’ dilemma: While reliable intuiting can only be found at the highest levels of mastery, these levels of mastery seem unachievable without reliable intuiting. Using literature on expertise as a base, this chapter introduces the Markers of Mastery (MM) scale that includes intuiting as a critical marker of mastery and demonstrates that intuiting becomes more frequent and reliable with increased mastery. Positioning intuiting as sensing + sensemaking explains reasons for this phenomenon and contributes to resolving ‘the chicken or the egg’ dilemma. Capturing intuiting on the MM scale also allows for early talent recognition, assessment of one’s current level of mastery, and identification of one’s developmental needs.