Head, Heart and Guts
Posted by Michelle Tustin on September 7th, 2009 at 2:53pm
Recently, I have been considering the issue of leadership, particularly in relation to insight generation. What makes a leader in insight generation? And what elements are required for this role?
In pondering this, I came across and devoured a book on leadership entitled ‘Head, Heart and Guts’ by David Dotlich et al. [2006].
This book is an excellent read and I recommend it to anyone interested in leadership of any sort. It is filled with case studies from companies such as Bank of America, J&J, Novartis, and UBS. The authors are senior executives who now serve as principals with Mercer Delta Executive Learning Center.
The book focuses on a fresh approach to leadership. Dotlich et al. [2006] approach leadership as the integration of the head, heart and guts. ‘Guts’ is a term for the willingness to put one’s views on the line.
According to this book, whole leaders base decisions as much on instinct and relationships as on analytical skills. They balance people and business needs with risk and reward. Whole leaders create real trust through unyielding integrity and transparency.
How supremely true is this for a leader in insight generation? I personally believe it is exactly right!
As a leader in insight generation, your lead provides you with the ability to analyse and evaluate research findings. Your heart provides you with the instincts that are needed to understand consumers in context.
‘Guts’ is the icing on the cake.
To generate valuable consumer insights and strategic recommendations takes guts! In my view, a leader in insight generation needs to put their views on the line and in writing and be completely transparent with the basis for their insight.
Posted in Uncategorized
I agree it takes guts and instinct but all the guts in the world wont make up for having the right information. Guts is definitley the icing on the cake and is what I think separates
However, to get deep customer insight, you need a solid base of information – you have to ask and observe in multiple ways with disciplined processes
For example, companies may think deep insight comes from the mining of transaction data – information that customers bring to companies through sales visits or purchases and was gathered in the context of the seller’s product and related services. While this information is important, it’s not sufficient for deep insight nor enough to be a leader (or at least a good leader) in insight.
I think to be a leader in providing insight, the client has a rle to play in letting you – after all, they’re investing their money in research to provide information they think they want or need, and if the technique is a little left of centre, or perhaps too expensive, then the value of the insight that can be provided is limited to the value of the clients investment in letting you uncover it for them…
For example, the client is almost always comfortable with a survey, but maybe an ethnographic study is critical in finding out how a service or product is actually used. A survey is good, a survey and a series of focus groups is better, A survey, focus groups and face to face in depths better again…start to data mine from social networking sites, and so on…the more ways to get data on a topic, the more valuable the insights and the better the leader.
I think its the value of the insight thats key…insights can be given from instinct and guts but if they’re wrong and cant be backed up with evidence, then does that make a good leader?
Posted by Nathan Hubbard on September 8th, 2009 at 5:06pm