True insight requires time for reflection

Be honest. Insight team meetings are a bit of a luxury, aren’t they?

 

We’re under such pressure to deliver as many projects as possible. We can’t really afford to all down tools for an hour, can we?   

 

So what is the point of Insight team meetings? Of course, their value depends how you use the time. 

 

In this 2017 article in Harvard Business Review the authors put the case for us to ‘regain the lost art of reflection’. They explain

 

“…a focus on information processing, reaction, and execution — while it may feel productive — causes the quality of our thoughts to suffer. 

In reflective thought, a person examines underlying assumptions, core beliefs, and knowledge, while drawing connections between apparently disparate pieces of information.”

 

A weekly ‘round the table’ update from everyone may be a useful download of information, but is that really the best use for a precious hour of team time? So what would be a better way to spend team meeting time? The answer is to use it to develop a common understanding of customers’ value, behaviour, drivers and environment.

 

The true purpose of an Insight team is to create value for the organisation, not to run as many projects as possible. An Insight team can’t create value unless it agrees on what it knows.

 

All Insight teams have to be able to generate new insights. But it is likely that there will be far more value in the accumulated body of knowledge than there is in a single new piece of research or analysis. It is this accumulated knowledge which constitutes true insight. So it should be normal for team members to spend significant time and effort reflecting on it – both as individuals and together.

 

The balance between individual and group reflection will vary from team to team, but it’s important to recognise that both are important, and that individuals’ personality types will sometimes make them more comfortable with one than the other.

 

Insight is honed when experts discuss it. Group reflection at a team meeting enables the team to:

  • Share and debate new insights
  • Use the collective knowledge of the group to sharpen new insights
  • Unearth hidden knowledge
  • Update the accumulated body of knowledge
  • Clarify and instil the knowledge which each team member is expected to have.

There is nothing wrong with some analysts or researcher having specialist knowledge – for example of a particular category, product or channel.  But to be truly useful, that specialist knowledge needs to be framed by wider knowledge. Otherwise thinking becomes too narrow. So any team member who is likely to be touched by a topic needs to be exposed to the critical thinking about it. 

 

Practical tips for encouraging individual and group reflection

  • Create a weekly or monthly schedule of topics to reflect on across the year so that the body of insight is reflected upon in manageable and predictable bite-sized chunks
  • Schedule and commit yourself to regular team sessions with an agenda focused on sharing, debating and instilling a common understanding of the accumulated body of knowledge
  • Discuss operational issues and project progress at separate team meetings, or outside of team meetings
  • Provide stimulation at team sessions by inviting someone from outside the team who is likely to challenge the accumulated insight, or have useful input to it
  • Set aside a specific regular slot (e.g. Friday afternoons once a month) for individuals to reflect on customer and market understanding e.g. familiarising themselves with it, updating it, etc.
  • Introduce some fun by using quizzes, competitions, etc.
  • Display key insight messages on office walls, toilet doors, etc. so that it becomes familiar
  • Put team members in work situations where they need to draw upon collected insight beyond any current specialism they may have.

 

Effective Insight teams understand their true purpose and prioritise accordingly – including making time to discuss what they know, to challenge each other’s assumptions and to rehearse customer stories. Now that sounds like a team meeting worth going to.

 

 

Further information

 

If you would like to find out more about how to improve your team's capability to manage Insight knowledge, our best practice report on this topic provides detailed guidance.