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“When you have a big insight (…) you have to protect it at all costs, even to the point of insubordination”.

“Insights sometimes come from the most unlikely places (…) [an insight] initiates a chain of events (…) an insight also has the capacity to take something that you know in your head and make you feel it in your gut.”

“Good research demands brilliant analysis which inspires blazing insights that lead to groundbreaking strategies and award winning executions.”

“Insights do not appear in a vacuum. They appear when you start assimilating information.”

Phil Dusenberry, former Chairman of BBDO North America.

When working on innovation projects we may deal with limited and incomplete technical and business information. Some other times, there might be a wealth of data available, but we might have neither the resources nor the time to make the most of it. Even when having the right amount of information to begin with, being in a dynamic marketplace means moving targets and changing data.

Most executives would agree on the fact that data ridden presentations might not prove useful. The point I am trying to make is that qualitative analytical skills and insights happen to be key to decision making. This means being able to address and answer the “so-what?”.

Phil mentions in his book that what really matters is whether the research you are conducting delivers valid insights. In chapter 13 he talks about building a foolproof insight creation machine:

1. Cause insights to happen rather than create them. Rely on other people’s creativity.
2. Hire people smarter than you are.
3. Always gauge a person’s passion for an idea.
4. Judge and insight on its merits, not on how you would have done it. Don’t force-feed everything under your prism.
5. Don’t be surprised by surprises. Be open to accidents, messes, failures and other disasters and threat them as potential strokes of good luck
6. Don’t compete with your people.
7. Respond with your gut first, your head second.
8. Add value to an almost-there idea.
9. Be really tough on the work. Exercise the power to stop bad work.
10. Be direct. Don’t let people leave your office wondering if they’re on the right path.
11. Always have a reason for your opinion.
12. Once you say yes to a concept, don’t backpedal on it.
13. Be the boss everyone wants to work for.
14. Make your office the quake zone.
15. Never let them hear you bitch and moan.
16. Know your people and play to their strengths.
17. Play to their weaknesses to. Convert their weaknesses into strengths.
18. Get a life outside the office. Or you’ll never be able to bring the real world into your work.

J. de Francisco
Las Vegas, 3 April 08

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