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Issue 22 - March 2009 CONTENTS - Hooray For The Recession? - a very positive side - Under-developed or Under Development? - building in thinking time - Meet The Team Member - Ambitious Andy - Risky Business - 2nd article on risk in innovation - Reflect On This! - To get people to say Yes - Autumn courses
INTRODUCTION Welcome to the latest edition of 5-Minute Insights, the e-mail newsletter from Steve Wills and Sally Webb at Customer Insight Solutions (CI Solutions). We hope that in the few short minutes that it takes to scan the key messages, you will find snippets that are both informative and stimulating. If you want to find out more, we have provided links to longer articles for some of the insights.
INSIGHT IN PRACTICE HOORAY FOR THE RECESSION?
A new perspective – Insight is perhaps being seen as more valuable than in the past. So, what should you be doing now? These are our five Top Tips:
To find out more details, please click here. UNDER-DEVELOPED OR UNDER DEVELOPMENT?
1) Develop your techniques by attending courses and seminars and by reading the latest academic papers. 2) Develop your knowledge of your market or business by spending time at the coalface or by carrying out background reading. 3) Develop your business and managerial skills by checking out both internal and external training opportunities, including online options. To explore these ideas and some of the principles involved in greater detail, please click here. MEET THE TEAM MEMBER - AMBITIOUS ANDY During this series, we are looking at people who typify four different styles of behaviour. We will use two examples of each style: one whose approach has more impact upon other people and one that has more impact upon the task in hand.
Ambitious Andy The style The substance The solution To find out how you can gain the best results from Andy’s drive, please click here.
DEVELOPING SKILLS RISKY BUSINESS Assessing the likelihood of success for major innovations
Is it real? (R) Can we win? (W) Is it worth doing? (W) The answers to these questions - and those given at a further level down – will determine the likely success of a proposition. To understand some of the thinking behind this issue, please click here.
This approach can also be useful in business situations. Mirroring and matching helps: In informal discussions – when one person mirrors the other’s body language or behaviour. In negotiations – mirroring and matching has been shown to lead to better win-win outcomes. In group work - summarising people’s ideas back to them (and even writing them on a flipchart) reassures them that they have been heard and understood. Ultimately, the mirroring and matching technique can help you to gain greater rapport with people and could also increase your powers of persuasion.
TIP OF THE MONTH KEEP UP WITH THE NEWS If you’re concerned about different aspects of the recession (and who isn’t in these troubled days?) take a look at this BBC website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7844861.stm. It’s packed with useful information relating to the impact that the current climate is having upon businesses across the UK. The Business section covers a range of hot topics, including unemployment figures; repossession actions; interest rates; trends in house prices; and changes in GDP and inflation. There are also sections that provide helpful advice for companies and individuals that are facing particular difficulties at the moment. There’s even a chance for you to voice your own opinions or to get some of those burning questions answered. So, link up with the BBC, and keep in touch with the latest news! TRAINING The dates for the next set of courses in the Autumn are still to be set. Contact us if you are interested or if you want to run one as an in-house course. Insight management and communications: vision to reality Commercial thinking How to communicate for maximum impact Click here for more details
FEEDBACK We want 5-Minute Insights to be as useful as possible. That's where you come in! Please email us at feedback@cisolutions.co.uk with any comments you have about its content, its style, or with requests for items that you would like to see. If you have a difficult problem that you are having trouble solving - such as a Marketing Director who insists on ignoring unwelcome insights; or an issue that is challenging your team on the journey towards insight - please let us know. If we can make helpful suggestions we will, and if several people have a similar problem, we will write an article for 5-Minute Insights. If you would like to pass this newsletter on to your colleagues, please feel free to do so. Equally, if you know anyone who would like to be added to the mailing list, please let us know. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here. |
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Although the recession is hurting a lot of businesses, it is also bringing new opportunities for Insight teams. It seems to differ from past recessions because it is providing: 
In many professions, the use of continuous professional development (CPD) has become standard practice. So, perhaps we should be using CPD more in the Insight world. It’s something that’s important but can easily get squeezed out by more ‘urgent’ issues. Here are three quick suggestions:
Following our look at the risk matrix in last month’s issue, we turn our attention to another useful development detailed by George S Day – the ‘R-W-W’ screening tool. This assesses the potential viability of a project by looking at some key questions:
Tests have shown that if a waiter makes a point of repeating customers’ orders back to them using exactly the same words, then their tips increase. This is partly the result of the reassurance that the customers get when their words are mirrored and matched.
