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“Insight” in the Context of Business and What Makes It Unique

I claim that insight is the single most important factor that allowed me to accelerate my career. I also claim that I can teach you to become more insightful yourself. However, I use the words “insight” and “insightfulness” in a somewhat unique way. It is specifically tailored to be applicable in the business world. Understanding the way I define it, and its nuances, is imperative.

“Insight” and “insightfulness” are words that describe a concept. Translating a concept into actions that can be taught and in turn used by someone is a challenging task. This is particularly so for concepts that appear clear and are well understood, yet in reality are overly general and somewhat amorphous. By way of analogy, let’s take the word “astute.” Everybody understands what the word means, but how does one actually become astute, or more astute than one already is? When we hear a statement that provides a perspective deeper or different from our own, we may characterize it as astute. It is easy for us to identify it. But what can we actually do to become more astute ourselves? Clearly, it is not an easy thing to understand and do, yet it is exactly the objective of this book—to teach you how to become more insightful in the context of the business world. To do this, I need to define “insight” and “insightfulness” in my own way, so please bear with me as I first discuss my definition. I believe that you will likely discover some new “insights” (pun intended!) that will allow you not just to better appreciate what follows, but more importantly, to be better equipped to benefit from it.

Let’s look first at the definition of “insight” from Dictionary.com:

insight. n

1)An instance of apprehending the true nature of a thing, especially through intuitive understanding.

2)Penetrating mental vision or discernment; faculty of seeing into inner character or underlying truth.

Note the strong reference to intuitive understanding and mental vision. You could conclude that insight is something dependent on innate capabilities we are born with and that it cannot be taught or learned. So, how can I make the claim that by reading this book the reader can become more insightful? The answer lies in looking at insight in a slightly different way.

Colloquially, the word “insight” is used in many ways that are not based on intuition or mental vision of one kind or another. For example, it is used to describe some information one has that is not immediately available to others (e.g., “He has some insight about what’s going on in that country.”). This reflects some knowledge that is not generally known. It is this kind of an insight that I am referring to in my experience and in this book.

How does one arrive at such insight?

I suggest that insightfulness comprises two separate dimensions. The first is a keen understanding that reflects the accumulated knowledge and wisdom one brings to bear in situations and circumstances that commonly occur with similar dynamics and reasonably predictable outcomes. It can come from one’s own experience or observations and lessons imparted by others from their experience. These lessons teach us about how things “really work” and the dos and don’ts in such situations. The second reflects on one’s ability to conduct more discerning analyses of unique business situations/challenges, leading to observations and conclusions that are uniquely different from what others may arrive at. I refer to the second one as specific situational analyses. This ability to reach insightful specific situational analyses is heavily driven by distinct tools and techniques. This book addresses both aspects. It offers specific observations and lessons as well as the various tools and techniques that lead to more insightful situational analyses. To this end, I define insight and insightfulness in a unique way. Both the definition of insight is unique, and so is the conceptual difference between insight and insightfulness. It may seem at first to be a minor nuance, but it is not. It captures the essence of this book.

Insight: An ability to observe situations, evaluate all relevant information, discern the true nature of things, and attain a perspective that helps reach and/or influence a correct evaluation and decision in support of a desired outcome.

Note that my definition represents an ideal of utmost perfection in that it implies that we observe all or everything there is to observe, and discern all the truth there is to be discerned. Clearly, rarely can such perfection be attained. In reality there are varying degrees of insights, kind of “partial” insights, which are much more likely. It means that only some of the analyses are conducted insightfully, while others may not be. Or that only some greater “truth” had been discovered, but not necessarily the “whole truth” and “nothing but the truth.” However, this fact doesn’t take away from the value I attribute in this book to insight, be it partial or full perfection. First, we all strive for full perfection, and second, any partial insightfulness will still result in superior outcomes relative to analyses performed without any insights, or with lesser insights. Thus, henceforth, whenever I refer to insight, it includes both partial and total perfection.

I believe that everything attributed to me as having a unique insightful talent is meant in the way I just defined it. No sixth sense or extraordinary degree of intuition, instincts, or mental capability; only the ability to observe all of the relevant information and analyze it correctly, so that you may discern the true nature of things, which will result in a correct evaluation and a correct decision.

Note that my definition clearly implies that in any given situation one can’t be wrong and still be insightful. And conversely, one can’t be insightful and be wrong. Thus, if you learn to become more insightful, you have learned to be more correct. That is why learning how to become more insightful will allow you to make correct decisions and accelerate your career.

Not only can the above definition of insight be taught and learned, but as importantly, it is most relevant in business. I refer to it in a simple way as the ability to “see the forest for the trees,” yet still see the “trees in the forest,” combined with “thinking out of the box,” and driven by pure, simple logic and correct data, which often represent a big challenge in business situations and can be important and, at times, critical.

As you look closely at my definition of insight, you may notice a seemingly interesting paradox. Notice that in my definition I use the phrase “an ability to observe situations.” Well, if it is only the ability to observe, it means that it is there for all to see. If one discerns from that the true nature of things, then many others could as well. If it leads to correct decision making, then it implies that most agree, which means it must be logical and consistent with what people already know or understand. So, how can something be there for all to see, be logical, make a lot of sense, and that most agree with, yet be considered insightful? This appears to contradict the very definition of insightfulness. After all, insightfulness refers to a unique observation or capability that is not apparent to everybody.

An interesting paradox, but only conceptually. The reality is that even though all can observe and see the same things, only a few are able to see beyond the “obvious.” It is the “obvious” that all can see and observe. Often, the less obvious appears to be a nuance, something that appears to be of no importance or significance, and therefore is frequently ignored. Indeed, many times, the nuance is not all that important. However, in some situations it may hold the key to correct understanding. It is in those situations that insightfulness can come into play. It just requires someone to be aware of a fact or an element that has escaped everyone else. As you continue to read the book, pay attention in the stories and examples to how what appears to be an unimportant nuance turns into an insightful observation that completely changes the analyses and conclusions.

We all possess the ability to be insightful. We all exhibit it, on and off, to one degree or another; there is nothing terribly unique about that. However, I would like to introduce a small nuance to differentiate between what all of us can do and what only a few of us can.

Insightfulness Is a Unique Capability

So far, I have intermingled insight, insightful, and insightfulness. I would separate and define the word “insightfulness” to mean something different from the other two. I’ll define insightfulness in a way that applies to only a very few. Thus, I define insightfulness to represent a unique capability.

I define insightfulness or an insightful person as having the ability to be insightful with a high degree of consistency.

In other words, it is not the occasional display of brilliance or insight that matters much. It is doing so consistently. As such, one has a distinguishable talent, and uniquely so, that others will notice. Expanding your innate ability to be insightful and enabling you to do so more consistently is what I can teach you in this book. You will then become an insightful person.

My hope is that you will gain many new perspectives that will enable you to consistently reach better decisions and, by extension, be more successful. Much of the “art of insight” reflects a “different way of thinking,” which requires paying attention to nuances, framing issues differently and uniquely, seeing beyond the obvious, and so on. It would be of value for you as you read this book to try to always ask yourself whether you would have indeed thought about each of the observations I make in the same way yourself. Better yet, try to second-guess me on each of my observations before you proceed to read my analyses and conclusions. It will help you realize that the perspective I have taken in many cases is different and indeed insightful.

One more thing: “Insight,” “insightful,” and “insightfulness” are conceptual words, which are not necessarily easy to measure. It would be useful for the purpose of this book to use some simplistic attributes that allow some characterization of how to differentiate and characterize the insightful person from the non-insightful, and the degree of insightfulness. I’ve already suggested that the answer lies in the difference between seeing the “obvious” from the “non-obvious” and the nuances in between. I will therefore use the following terms to loosely differentiate the insightful from the non-insightful: “Deep/Refined Thinker” versus “Shallow Thinker” and correspondingly a continuum of “deep” (i.e., deep, deeper, deepest and shallow, shallower, shallowest) to differentiate between the relative degrees of insightfulness.