The Insight Revolution: Question Everything – by Andrew Grenville – Book Review
Posted by Ray Poynter, 25 November 2018 If you work in a client-side insights team, then this is a ‘must read’ book for you. This relatively short book is based on interviews with leading figures from the industry and highlights the need for change in the way insights is conducted. Indeed the message is ‘change or die’. The book starts by setting the scene, briefly recapping the history of insights, highlighting that what we did in the past was correct in the past, and showing why it is wrong now. The second chapter is perhaps the most important in the book; it exposes the weaknesses in the way that insight teams relate the rest of the business. The book shows that insights teams tend to be order takers, rather than being proactive. To summarise, a stakeholder asks for the wrong thing (because they are not aware of all the options), the insight team delivers it, the stakeholder is disappointed because it does not help the business take an action, and the insights team are disappointed because nothing is done with their research. As a consequence, more decisions are made without insights, and the insights team are seen as a cost centre […]