​THE SEARCH FOR INSIGHTS 

The difference between research and the search for insights.

 

A huge amount of market and social research is undertaken every year, carefully recording what people say they see, hear, feel, know and believe, and what they have done, are currently doing and expect to be doing.  Ask questions and obviously you get answers.

 

However, while the resulting answers are clearly what people say, are they what they really mean?  Indeed, do people always do what they say, or say what they do?  Can everything that counts be counted, and does everything that can be counted, count?

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The answer to these kinds of serious questions is that research is simply not enough in itself anymore. Providing quantitative or qualitative research findings and summarising them in reports is only part of the answer.  What you really need are the insights and directions that a very carefully crafted understanding of that information provides.  Amazing Insights discovers and shares those insights and directions with you.

 

The search for insights is far more than research and evaluation.

 

An insight is a shrewd evaluation or interpretation of a given understanding, belief, expectation or action that explains the dynamics of that situation in a different light and allows our client to approach and influence the outcome in a different, more enlightened way.

 

As a ‘new’ discipline, the search for insights may sound a trifle fickle and ‘new age’ to some, whereas the old tradition of research sounds respectable, scientific and knowledgeable.   However, while research addresses and delivers on the aims and objectives set for it, and provides loads of knowledge, the search for insights also strives to turn the knowledge gained through research and enquiry into evidence-based wisdom, recommendations and actions.

 

The search for insights needs time to incubate, it should never be rushed.

 

Occasionally, just occasionally, insights and even solutions come easily and quickly, but not often! 

 

Mostly, nothing much happens for a while, we sit there puzzling over things, considering the evidence, but nothing jumps out at us.  Having worked on the challenge for a while without reaching a successful solution, we often put it aside to let it simmer and return to it later.

 

Sometimes the solution pops into our heads during this period of not (actively) thinking about the challenge, or soon after we return to the challenge.  The solution to some challenges seem to arrive out of nowhere, whereas with others the solution seems to be the result of a long thought process.

 

The power of careful questioning.

 

Careful questioning can be used to reveal a wide variety of viewpoints and perspectives in order to reveal insights that enable a specific challenge to be tackled. With encouragement it also helps people to learn how to ask careful questions themselves.

 

During such insight sessions, the moderator asks the group or workshop to frame fresh questions, and provides coaching about how to phrase the questions in ways that generate changes in thinking patterns and more choices.

 

Importantly, the questions are never answered in the session. Rather, the uninterrupted flow of continually asking questions from many perspectives often brings unconscious assumptions to the surface and raises new possibilities and opportunities for consideration.

 

People leave the assignment with a long list of strategic and tactical questions to explore, drawing on and benefiting from their combined experience which in some cases could be very extensive indeed.

 

Careful questioning can often speed up the process by breaking existing thought patterns, although it can also uncover a whole range of new information and ideas, the consideration of which may prolong the process, often very constructively.  

 

We use different questioning approaches to search for insights, than we use in research.

 

In market and social research we constantly strive to ask objective, dispassionate questions that faithfully elicit information from people such as their behaviour, attitudes and expectations. We do not try to influence their behaviour or thinking in any way, other than for example sometimes offering them a range of alternatives (eg, brand names or behaviours or choices) from which to choose, some of which they may not have heard of or considered before.

 

On the other hand, in searching for insights, we are often seeking to encourage change in the thinking patterns of ourselves and others in order to see things in a new light and uncover new and different ways of handling situations. This often requires asking quite different questions from those we use in research – questions that will effectively break old patterns rather than faithfully recording them.

 

But what about ‘big data’?

 

On the other hand, sometimes we think that we are swamped with so much data, much of it unorganised and of doubtful reliability, that we feel overwhelmed. The huge amount of information available from social media is a good example of this.

 

Here we need to add focussed questions to our tool bag. These are questions aimed at leading us right to the target, crafted with precision to facilitate prudent sorting and sifting during the gathering or discovery process. They focus our approach so that we gather only the particular evidence we need to show us the way to tackle our challenge.

 

 

In short, the differences between research and the search for insights are that:

 

• Whereas research delivers to government and business, the search for insights encourages working in partnership with government and business.

 

• Whereas research delivers data that can be summarised and forms the basis for recommendations, the search for insights invariably delivers a richer narrative.

 

• Whereas research is often comfortable stopping at a descriptive level, the search for insights adds richness to revealed opportunities and strategies to address uncovered threats.

 

• Whereas research tends all too often to stop at the ‘what’ level, the search for insights looks way beyond the ‘what’ to provide the ‘why is it so’, and the ‘what ought we to do next’ response to that situation.