This week I’ve been thinking about the roles that Insight professionals are likely to play in an AI-shaped world, which is the topic of the IMA’s Insight forums in November and December. It’s too early to see the details of any reporting line roles, but I think we can start to map a journey that we will all need to go on – or continue along: a journey from being researchers or analysts to becoming Insight activists. This topic is framing the way I’m thinking about the content I’m reading and listening to, including a new edition of Matthew Syed’s book Black Box Thinking, which has been published to mark its tenth anniversary. It’s a great example, packed full of examples of how some sectors (such as aviation) have become famous for how they record and share learnings when accidents occur, whilst others have a culture of sweeping problems under the carpet and never moving forward.
Ten years ago, Steve Wills and I became rather obsessed by this book, and it helped contextualise some of our thinking on Insight farming – the critical habit of discussing new research and analysis findings, checking facts and figures that seem at odds with existing learning, investigating contradictions, and building picture summaries drawn from multiple sources. It’s not just the summaries themselves that are critical, it’s the discussions between Insight people along the way.
But as we think about Insight roles of the future, I think one of the behavioural roles that will give us great opportunities to expand our remit is that of the knowledge steward, where we are not only farming the collective insight produced by the Insight team, but checking, challenging, combining and curating the knowledge produced by many others around the organisation.
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Topics Discussed
This is episode 81 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, and the 9Ps of The Insight Leader’s Playbook, 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.
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About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming Insight
James Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA).
He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.
An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.
The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation.
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
Disclaimer
The Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.
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