Friends,
I hope that all is well with you and yours.
In Cardboardtopia, for that is the name by which my house still goes, things are what they have been. We have another month or so to go before we start doing proper renovations, so life ticks on in rather dull fashion.
To be fair, it could be a lot worse. Having to spend 30 minutes going through boxes trying to find a particular book is, in the grand scheme of things, not the end of the world. But it also not exactly something that I enjoy, let us put it that way.
Anyway.
As promised last week, we are today going to dig deeper into insights. In so doing, I will lean heavily on the work of Gary Klein, whose book Seeing What Others Don’t is, in my opinion, the best work on the topic by quite some margin.
However, since far from everyone will have read it, we need to begin by defining two adjacent concepts that will make the subsequent discussion significantly more coherent: stories and anchors.
“Stories are a way we frame and organize the details of a situation. There are other types of frames besides stories, such as maps and even organizational wiring diagrams that show where people stand in a hierarchy. … These kinds of stories organize all kinds of details about a situation and depend on a few core beliefs we can call “anchors,” because they are fairly stable and anchor the way we interpret the other details.”
Stories in this context are, in other words, what we tell ourselves about how the world works – they convey our understanding. In turn, they are anchored by what we hold to be undeniably true, the roots of our reality. What thus ultimately constitutes insights, using Klein’s verbiage, can be described as unexpected shifts to a better story. Sometimes these shifts will be immediate, other times they will not. Either way, they always transform how we see and feel about the world around us. Once we have gained a new insight, we cannot go back.
To illustrate, take a look at the FedEx logo. Many of you will know that there is something embedded in it other than the letters. If you do, you will see it instantly. If you do not, you will not.
If we zoom in on a particular part of the logo, however, everyone will see what is there.
Now look at the logo again and try to, so to speak, unsee the arrow between the E and the x.
This is obviously not an insight in itself, but as far as illustrations go, it is not a bad one. Insights deliver closure, as if all the pieces of a puzzle suddenly fall into place. They do not provide us with a list of possible answers; they provide the single answer. And just like with the FedEx logo, despite having access to the same data, people fail to gain the insight until they do – at which point they cannot go back.
The origins of insights
The question, then, is how insights come about. In his studies, Klein ultimately settled on three pathways in a triple path model:
contradiction,
connection, and
creative desperation.
Each has a different trigger, but all end in an insight (click on the image for a more easily readable size) .
Contradictions are by nature all around us. They arise when we spot inconsistencies in our current story, i.e., when a new observation lets us know that we have been wrong. In order to find them, one should question one’s own previous lines of thinking; one centers on a weak anchor and rebuilds the story.
For those looking to gain insights from contradiction, keeping an open mind is good, but having a critical mind is better. (Skepticism is not bad as a way of life either.) This can be difficult in a team setting – a topic that we will return to next week – so needs to be encouraged by leadership.
Connections means adding a new anchor, a novel piece of information, and working out the implications; we add the new data to our already existing metaphorical databank. This often requires stepping out of one’s comfort zone or habit. However, few things are more effective, from my experience, than reading broadly; borrowing concepts from other fields requires intimate knowledge of them.
Creative desperation, lastly, is often experienced whenever we are up against deadlines or under pressure, with no answer in sight. As a result, we feel trapped, locked within the present context, and the only way out is to identify a weak anchor that is keeping us there. This requires us to question what we thought be true and figure out where we must be wrong; it is a challenging not of stories, but of anchors. Only abandoning the anchor leads to an escape from impasse (hence the saying “necessity is the mother of invention”). Inversion hypotheticals, such as “what if this were untrue?” can provide such a way out.
The implications
Crucially, each and every one of the paths to insights can be taken more or less deliberately. Questioning assumptions, ensuring that we challenge not just others but also our own beliefs, running exercises such as pre-mortems, or simply spending an hour reading instead of watching Netflix, are all things that anyone can start doing immediately.
In the popular discourse, insights are often viewed as things that, as if by magic, appear out of nowhere. While this can be the case (coincidences and curiosities, i.e., interesting single events, can also lead to insights via novel connections made), relying on serendipity to build what might eventually become a strategic advantage appears, shall we say, far from ideal.
Of course, it may also be the case that insights gained are stifled. Many of the ways in which companies attempt to reduce uncertainty, whether in their markets or in employee behavior, are rooted in the false belief that they are dealing with order when, in fact, they are dealing with complexity. As a result, the way in which they go about finding insights practically ensures that none will be found.
Next week, our topic will cover precisely that.
Until then, have the loveliest of weekends.
Onwards and upwards,
JP
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