Recognising insight origin – questioning value

Eddie Obeng’s ‘Smart Failure for a Fast-Changing World’ TED Talk is one of my favourites. The energy and content he shares in a few minutes are powerful and insightful. In fact, it became the cornerstone of many of my exploratory conversations around ‘leadership in change’ with clients and colleagues for a number of years.

I only realised I hadn’t referenced it so much recently when I attended the LMA Annual Conference – where Eddie was a keynote speaker. Chatting with my colleagues at the event, I commented on how I was really looking forward to hearing Eddie speak and referenced the energy in this TED Talk, expecting recognition and equal anticipation.

They weren’t familiar with it.

Something that I had at the foundation of my thinking around leadership for change wasn’t at all as omnipresent as I thought.

I’ve been mulling that over since the conference. Why and when did I stop sharing this insight? How did I believe it was so known that I no longer ‘named it’ or recognised its place in my beliefs and thinking? What was the risk in assuming?

I certainly believe learned insights should be used in context and environment – and not just on a repeat cycle of ‘favourites’. But, in conjunction with deliberate iteration through conscious learning, environmental changes and context shifts – do we lose something by not continuing to recognise the ‘origins of the insight’ and its impact on our beliefs and thinking?

And conversely, how often do we scrutinise the insights we hold dear – checking for relevance, contextual application, and fresh or building thinking? How often do we pause and give them a little shake for robustness? How do we ensure what we are sharing is valuable?

Next week we have our Leading Edge Performance Winter Team Day with a big focus on exploring together (a robustness shake!) the ‘high-performance insights’ that form the foundation of our work with clients. We’re inviting the team to bring layering stories that will further inform, underpin, or iterate our thinking to ensure relevance.

I’m sure there’ll be some similar moments to that ‘oh!’ moment I had at the LMA Conference. And I’m looking forward to sharing and shaping some building stories.

(By the way, Eddie was as awesome as I expected – full of energy and provocation. You can see the TED Talk here.)

Michaela Weller?

Director??