The term “insight” is typically used to describe a creative cognition yielding a quality of understanding of a situation, a problem, an event, or a particular domain of interest, which goes well beyond surface facts and assumptions. This understanding often contains a new non-obvious interpretation of an ambiguous situation or complex problem, and thus offers guidance for potential action.
Many organizations, grappling with a significantly changed operating environment, seek insights from their members to interpret and respond to challenges of novelty, complexity, and uncertainty significantly greater than what they have confronted before. Jane Suri, past Chief Creative Officer of IDEO, noted that many innovation challenges in the workplace are framed in an ever more open-ended way (Suri, 2008). Therefore effective responses to these challenges involve more than simply fixing or improving something familiar. As a result, many of our existing mental frameworks, practices and tools can miss their mark when applied to such challenges.
Harvard Professor David Perkins observed that the structure of certain situations or problems makes them inherently difficult to resolve. He describes these kinds of problems or challenges as unreasonable in the sense that they cannot be “reasoned out step by step to home in on the solutions” (Perkins, 2000 p22). As such they are not malleable to purely analytical approaches; only through insight can they be comprehended and addressed.
Can we develop techniques enabling us to develop insight into these kinds of problems? So can we, as individuals and organizations, learn to “see” when we confront unreasonable problems or open-ended challenges?
It is not immediately evident whether and how individuals and organizations develop that enhanced ability to “see” and comprehend in a new way. Is it simply a matter of elevated and more sustained attention to the circumstances around them? Is it a matter of increased reflection on or more systematic study of those circumstances? The visual research of Jeremy Wolfe (2005, 2015), suggests that, as individuals, even when we recognize there is a problem or when we think we are focused on a situation, we don’t see it fully. Rather, owing to the inability of our brains to process the full quantity of information present in any situation, we pay selective attention to information “in full view”. So that raises the issue of whether and how organizations and the individuals within them can learn to pay attention to the information that matters most for addressing our most intractable problems.
This article explores these themes around developing and using insight, particularly within organizations, in the following sections:
Images and Impacts of Insight: What do we mean when we talk about “insight”? Why is the notion of insight compelling in organizational settings?
Exploring the Insight Experience through different perspectives: Can we characterize insight and insightful practice in meaningful ways that enable us to analyze, evaluate and perhaps promote its occurrence?
Impediments or Invigorants to Insightful Practice: Are there prevailing norms and attitudes that challenge or undermine the emergence of insight or insightful behavior in organizations? What general principles and specific approaches might promote and enhance opportunities for insightful activity?
References:
Perkins, D.N. (2000). The Eureka Effect: The Art and Logic of Breakthrough Thinking. New York & London, W.W. Norton & Company.
Suri, J. F. (2008). Informing our Intuition: Design Research for Radical Innovation. Rotman Magazine Winter: 53-57.
Wolfe, J.M. (2005). Rare items often missed in visual searchers. Nature, v435, May 26 2005.
Wolfe, J. M. (2015). Visual Search: Is It a Matter of Life and Death? In M. A. Gernsbacher & J.R. Pemerantz (Eds.), Psychology and the Real World: Essays Illustrating Fundamental Contributions to Society, 2nd edition Macmillan Learning.
The full article is here: