Issue 23 - Five Minute Insight - Customer Insight Solutions



	Issue 23 - April 2009 CONTENTS Introduction Insight in Practice - Applying the Pareto Principle - Letting Go - let others do research - Meet The Team Member - Team-Building Tara Developing Skills - Be-Friend Your Foe - winning round a difficult colleague - May The Force Be With You... - Porter's 5 Forces - Tip of the Month - Having fun! Training and Feedback - 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 APPLYING THE PARETO PRINCIPLE When applied to insight situations, the Pareto Principle suggests that roughly 80% of the most valuable results come from 20% of the work carried out. This principle can be applied in many different ways. Here’s how it can work: At home: When vacuuming the carpet, you can be thorough or you can achieve similar results by expending just 20% of that energy and vacuuming just the most visible areas. At work: 20% of your effort, if targeted wisely, will deliver 80% of the desired outcome. From then onwards, your efforts will have diminishing returns. The principle: You may not have the time to do a thorough job on all of your tasks. Learn to prioritise your work based on its potential impact and value. You will then be in a much better position to determine where your cut-off point should be. Over the next few editions of 5MI, we’ll look at how this broad principle can be applied to time management, stakeholder management, supplier management, project work etc. To find out more about the Pareto Principle, please click here. LETTING GO Research teams can be guilty of always wanting to keep a very tight control over their particular area of work. This can, indeed, have many benefits (including a consistency of approach and the ability to avoid overlapped or repeated work). However, there is also a considerable downside: Demand almost always exceeds your resource levels. You take on more work than you can do and have to skimp on other projects. This means that you skimp on the thinking that delivers quality and added value. The solution is to allow others to do some of their own research as long as you retain an element of control throughout. This will ensure a consistent approach that delivers worthwhile results. The hardest part is letting go! You need to trust your colleagues and let them do their own research with your help. They will then appreciate your value even more. To explore this approach in more detail, please click here. MEET THE TEAM MEMBER - TEAM-BUILDING TARA 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. Team-Building Tara The style The final person is an example of a Relater. Tara makes sure that everyone on the team is on board and is happy. She’s very supportive and is a great team player. The substance Unfortunately, she may be too focused on harmony and not sufficiently focused on the job in hand. As a result, she may be working too slowly to deliver the results that are needed on time. The solution Tara needs to be clear about the agreed delivery dates and outputs, and to focus on the work that is needed to achieve those. She needs to crack on with her own contribution to ensure that the wider team’s targets are met. To understand Tara better – and to know how you can help her – please click here. DEVELOPING SKILLS BE-FRIEND YOUR FOE! Benjamin Franklin, the American scientist, adopted a clever ploy when faced by awkward opposition. He asked his opponent if he could borrow a book off him and later thanked him. This simple act disarmed his foe, who later became a firm friend. A similar principle can be applied at work: Do you have a colleague or stakeholder with whom there is a distinct lack of rapport? What do you do if you suddenly need their help? Do you avoid approaching them? Don’t! Go for it – and try and lay down the foundation for what could be a better relationship. It may not work – but if so, you haven’t lost anything. But if it does work, you may have gained a colleague or even a friend. To explore this issue further, please click here. USE THE FORCE Porter’s Five Forces provides a useful method for looking at how entire markets work. This approach has become an industry standard, so you should at least be aware of the principles involved. Porter suggests that one way to really understand the dynamics of an industry or a market is to explore the five key forces that affect the way in which it operates. These are: Competition between existing players The bargaining power of buyers The bargaining power of suppliers The threat of new entrants The threat of substitute approaches or technologies For any competitive situation, you can use these five forces as a way of helping you to think around the subject from a range of different angles. For a more in-depth investigation of this approach - including some further links - please click here. TIP OF THE MONTH FUN AND WORK CAN MIX! Fun matters! Not surprisingly in the current climate, we’re probably all stressed - but perhaps we all need a bit more fun in our lives. And if you can bring fun into other people’s lives, it will increase your influence at the same time. People respond well to (and remember) other people who make them feel good. Over the next few editions, we’re going to outline a few ideas for making insight more fun. But in the meantime, enjoy this clip. It’s on www.businessballs.com – a site we recommended ages ago and still recommend as a place where you can get almost everything in terms of business information. The clip is just about having a bit of fun. You can find it at: http://businessballs.com/clips_for_teaching_and_training.htm#news-presenters-off-camera 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 Sharing the vision of good insight management, with key processes and skills to help you on this journey. "Loads of useful learnings! I've applied one already today" Delegate Open Course 2007 Commercial thinking Enabling you to present your proposals and recommendations in £s not %s, to raise your profile and impact with marketing colleagues, finance and the Board. "Probably the most useful course I've ever been on" In-house course - Professional services How to communicate for maximum impact Hands-on training to increase the impact of all your written insight communications, from emails and presentations, to reports and newsletters. "Energising course with great practical applications" In-house course - Financial services 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.