How to win boardroom battles

Sure you can look up facts and wiki until you can wiki no more, but there is another option to coming up with solutions. Simply go with your gut.

Umair Kazi October 16, 2010
There are two ways to sell a solution.

The first is the one we’re trained at school with. Do your homework. Learn facts. Test a hypothesis. Come to a conclusion. Create a data set to prove that the proposed solution is logically deducted and scientifically designed to work.

You spend ten days finding out everything you need to know about a problem and summarize it on to a piece of paper that suggests a solution based on that data. You show said piece of paper to the other person. Here’s the suggestion, and here’s proof that it’ll work.

But there’s another way, and this route they deliberately avoid in academic settings.

It is the route of insight mining. Just put yourselves in the shoes of whoever needs this solution. What does s/he want? You’re not in search of proof if you go by this path. You’re in search of a big idea. An idea that can bowl you over, light a bulb on top of your head, and make you jump off the chair and shout “A-ha!.”

If it makes the client smile and brings a spark of excitement to their eyes, you’ve got it.

The big idea is not easy. There’s no process that can guarantee you’ll get there, no set path as there is in the case of the more scientific model.

Worse still, there’s a greater risk involved.

Something that resonates with you might not have the same effect on whoever you’re selling the idea to. But if you manage to pull it off just right and latch onto that little something that strikes a chord deep within, you’ve won your game. All the world’s research will not be able to convince your prospect to try anything else.
WRITTEN BY:
Umair Kazi A strategist who blogs at http://www.theideaartist.com
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

COMMENTS (3)

Tyrone Tellis | 13 years ago | Reply Insight mining is not as as you descrbe it - 'Just put yourselves in the shoes of whoever needs this solution. What does s/he want? You’re not in search of proof if you go by this path. You’re in search of a big idea' insights don't come from self referencing nor do they come (usually) as divine inspiration. You need to do a lot of research and sifting before you get an effective insight. The same with the big idea its not a result of day dreaming or even drug usage but a product of research and unorthodox thinking matched with observation.
Waqas | 13 years ago | Reply Yeah but that would require credibility. And for a person to be credible in any market, he/she has got to have sufficient experience. For a newbie to try something like this is a bit too risky, you never know how people are going to react to that.
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