Creating Greater Value: Insight vs. Information

What's the difference between insight and information??Some would say that insight is information that not only holds value in itself -- but actually CREATES VALUE.?To create greater value for a business, for instance, a good manager must be able to sort through the plethora of incoherent -- and often conflicting -- information to identify ACTIONABLE INSIGHT to help the organization achieve a business goal, or solve a specific business problem, or address an urgent business need.

Boiled down to its base, information is anything that occurs in the real world that we can make sense of.?In other words, it's something we can see, feel, hear, smell, taste and whatnot.?It's something instinctive, but it's also subjective and prone to biases.?Hence, one of the objectives of digitalization is to make business information more objective through data and metrics.?Yet, data and metrics by themselves don't mean anything.?We need to be able to extract meaningful indicators from them, and from there, generate value-creating insight we can act on.

Let's say you manage a sales team.?To create value for the business, your goal is be able to hit US$100M in revenues this year.?But to achieve this goal, you need to solve a prickly business problem: historically, your team has relied too much on key accounts and repeat business, and with the pipeline running dry, you run the risk of missing your goal. To address this, your team needs to drive new business development -- only they don't seem able to.?What actionable insight can you get out of the situation to help your team?

Of course, you can always start with gathering information through your own observations: "I don't see a lot of BD activity happening.?What could be stopping them from making more calls?"

Or from what your sales team might tell you: "Most new clients don't know us.?We need to invest more in marketing and outreach activities." or "We don't have the skills to close new deals with client decision-makers who are very senior.?Most of us are intimidated!"

While these sorts of information can be very helpful, they tend to be more skewed more towards subjective opinions rather than objective facts.?It's just human nature.?Hence, you need to vet and verify them objectively against available data and metrics.?

Data in your CRM, for example, might reveal that the real issue is not a lack of activity, but rather, poor conversions. Everyone's diligently making calls; they're just not converting these calls into face-to-face meetings (metrics).?But what do these data and metrics mean in relation to your business goal (indicators)??What are the consequences if we don't act on them (implications)?

This is where coaching, which we discussed in our previous article in this series, helps to uncover hidden gems or "insights" from the heaps of data, metrics and indicators, by reconciling them with the situation on the ground.??

Through coaching, you might learn that most of your sales team members are ill-equipped to handle "resistance" from prospective clients because they're approaching them cold and are very pushy in securing a face-to-face meeting. By understanding the situation and co-creating solutions together with your team, you're in a better position to gain mutual commitment that the best way to address this would be for everyone to focus on three things: (1) develop a multi-touchpoint plan to engage prospects before calling to warm up a prospect; (2) training your sales team how to handle resistance and pre-close prospects; and (3) adding secondary metrics, so that team members see the first call as an opportunity to "earn the right" to have a second call, rather than simply as pressure to book a meeting.

These are insights you can act on. They directly impact your ability to meet your goals and create greater value for the business.