being said, because that is often where the truth sits.
Today, in the language of risk management, we would call these early warning signals. We would describe them as indicators of emerging risk, signs that something needs attention before it becomes an incident. We would design dashboards and escalation protocols around them. Back then, it was far simpler and far more immediate. It was about survival. The survival of order, of fairness, and of trust. Get it wrong, and authority evaporated quickly. Get it right, and calm returned without drama or force.
That was my first real exposure to intuition at work, even though I had no name for it at the time. It was not something I consciously set out to develop. It emerged because it had to. Responsibility demanded it. I did not call it intuition then. I simply knew that paying attention kept things from falling apart.
University, Rugby, and Managing the Underdog Risk
At the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton, my friends Tom and Edson and I set out to revive a rugby team that most people believed had long disappeared. It was spoken about almost as folklore. Something that had once been there long before our time, and then quietly faded away. Bringing it back was not a casual decision, and we knew that from the beginning. There was no template to follow, no recent success story to lean on, and certainly no guarantee that it would work.
Rugby is not an individual sport. You need fifteen players just to field a team, and nearly double that number to train properly and sustain momentum. You need commitment, discipline, resilience, and some form of medical support. This was a private university, not a rugby powerhouse, and the odds were never in our favor.
Many students had never played rugby before. Others carried strong negative perceptions of the game. To them, rugby meant injuries, unnecessary aggression, and time demands that clashed directly with academic pressure. Convincing someone to even show up for a training session required more than logic or persuasion. It required reading people. You had to sense who was curious but cautious, who was interested but afraid to admit it, and who simply needed time to watch from the touchlines before stepping forward.
There was risk everywhere. The risk of failure was obvious. So was the risk of injury. There was also the risk of ridicule,
Being the underdog sharpens intuition as your antennae shoots up. When you cannot rely on reputation, history, or overwhelming strength, you learn to pay close attention. You learn to sense shifts early. You learn that waiting for perfect information is often the greatest risk of all.
of being dismissed as unrealistic, and the quieter risk that institutional support might slowly evaporate once initial enthusiasm wore off.
And yet, we persisted. Not because the odds were favorable, but because something felt right. We sensed curiosity beneath resistance. We noticed who lingered after conversations, who asked quiet questions, who kept watching training sessions from a distance before finally joining in. We learned when to push and when to ease off, when to challenge and when encouragement would go further. Discipline mattered, but patience mattered just as much.
People experience the thrill of rugby in different ways. Some are drawn to the physical contact, the collisions that test courage and resolve. Others find excitement in the scoring of tries, in the moment the effort finally crosses the line. Then there are those who see the beauty in the flair, in the running of the ball, in the movement and instinct of the backs as space opens and closes in seconds. What ties all of this together is decision-making under pressure. Rugby rewards those who sense what is unfolding before it becomes obvious.
In rugby, the most dangerous tackle is the one you do not see coming. Long before you can analyze angles or speed, your body already knows what to do. You brace, you sidestep, or you absorb the impact. Hesitation gets you injured. Decision, even imperfect decision, keeps you alive.
That same instinct was at work as we built the team. We were constantly making calls with incomplete information. Who could handle pressure. Who needed confidence more than criticism. Who was committed even when attendance dropped or injuries appeared. There was no spreadsheet to guide us, only observation, experience, and the willingness to act before certainty arrived.
The moment of vindication came when we played Moi University. At the time, Moi was competing at a high level, even playing established clubs. They were seasoned. We were unknown. The expectation was clear. We were going to be run over. But we beat them at their home ground.
What won that game was not superior skill alone. It was belief, momentum, and an ability to read the moment. We played with awareness rather than fear. We trusted each other’ s judgment. We made decisions quickly and stood by them.
That match taught me something I did not fully appreciate then but have come to recognize over the years. Being the underdog sharpens intuition as your antennae shoots up. When you cannot rely on reputation, history, or overwhelming strength, you learn to pay close attention. You learn to sense shifts early. You learn that waiting for perfect information is often the greatest risk of all.
That lesson stayed with me long after the boots were hung up and the playing fields gave way to boardrooms and committee tables.
Control Came Before Risk
When I graduated and entered the workforce, risk management was not a popular term. In business studies, the dominant word at the time was control. Controls, checks, procedures. Those were the tools we were taught to rely on.
My early years in government service as a Value Added Tax officer reinforced this thinking. The work was structured, ruledriven, and heavily procedural. Returns were assessed against defined criteria. Compliance was measurable. Deviations were easy to spot, at least on paper.
And yet, something interesting began to happen. Some returns complied fully and still felt wrong. The numbers balanced. The documentation was in order. But the