Episode 21: Driving change through communication
In this 15-minute episode, the first of season 3, James looks at how successful Insight teams can drive change through communication.
In season 2, we looked at how Insight people can influence the senior managers who make key decisions. That’s usually the best way to achieve the most impact.
But if your company aspires to be truly customer-centric, then it follows that there will be far more employees who need to understand fundamental aspects of customer relationships, behaviour, and its drivers than you could possibly talk to.
Insight teams cannot be present in every discussion that affects corporate decisions.
But insights and insight – the actionable knowledge that we develop - can be present, if an Insight team has a clear focus on disseminating its understanding.
For the most successful Insight teams, that includes a proper communication programme; an ability to shape and share stories; and an awareness of visual communication techniques to really make an impact and leave an impression.
So, throughout season 3 of our podcast, we hope to inspire Insight leaders to take communication far more seriously, and introduce frameworks that can help our team members to develop key skills.
Please listen to find out more!
Topics Discussed
- Does your organisation aspire to be truly customer-centric? (2.20)
- We should stop thinking like Insight leaders (4.09)
- Is Insight communication getting better? (8.09)
- How do we spend our time and energy? (9.30)
- Let’s move the goalposts (11.15)
Highlights
- “The way we share our knowledge is at least as important as the insights themselves. As members of the IMA’s Insight forum recognised many years ago, a great insight badly communicated will sink without trace, but a reasonable insight, brilliantly communicated, will spread like wildfire throughout your organisation.”
- “If we are to share our knowledge and ideas more effectively, perhaps we need to forget that it’s usually our day job to run research projects and manage teams of analysts. We should stop thinking like Insight leaders altogether and think like the IMA’s six characters of Insight communication.”
- “There are now some brilliant pieces of Insight communication being produced, but there’s still plenty of rubbish as well. Slides that have no message, charts cluttered with lines and data points, verbose reports written like technical, scientific papers rather than compelling calls to action. It’s the frequency and consistency with which our teams adopt best practice that determines how successful they are.”
This is episode 21 of the Transforming Insight podcast.
If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.
You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening.
About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight
James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). A popular keynote speaker and acknowledged expert on Insight leadership, strategy, and communication, he is the author of the book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams, and over 35 IMA publications. He has provided thought leadership in the UK, Western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, and the Middle East, and regularly hosts the IMA’s Insight forums - London, Manchester, UK Online and US Online.
The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming Insight teams.
Resources:
If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org
Copies of James Wycherley’s book Transforming Insight: the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams can be purchased direct from www.transforming-insight.com
Disclaimer
The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.
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