Transforming Insight Podcast

• Episode 82: Christmas roundtable

  Lisa and Emma share their experiences from the IMA’s recent Insight forums, highlighting the positive atmosphere and the encouraging conversations around the role of Insight in driving organisational change. They address the initial concerns surrounding the term "activist" and how, upon deeper understanding, it resonated positively with attendees.We also explore the current state of the Insight industry, acknowledging the opportunities and challenges posed by technological advancements, particularly AI. That’s the backdrop against which we Insight activists will need to reframe our mindset and play our new roles.As we look ahead to the new year, James encourages listeners to reflect on their Insight teams and their capability and consider how they can enhance their value to their organisations. We discuss upcoming Insight forums in January and February, focusing on Insight leaders’ priorities for managing and transforming their teams, and Insight professionals’ priorities for self-development. And we say thank you! Thank you to all our listeners for tuning in throughout Season 11 and hope you will join us again in early 2026 for the upcoming Season 12. We wish everyone a happy holiday season and encourage you all to embrace the opportunities for Insight growth and transformation in the year ahead.Please listen to find out more! Topics DiscussedThe Insight professionals pyramid (01.56)The importance of activism in Insight (5.05)Knowledge stewardship in the age of AI (12.03)Valuing Insights and commercial impact (17.23)January and February forum themes (25.39) This is episode 82 of the Transforming Insight podcast. If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. We will explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams; and the need for Insight leaders to write their own playbooks; we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening.  About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming InsightJames Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation. Resources:If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org DisclaimerThe Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.All rights reserved.   

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• Episode 81: Black Box Thinking revisited

  Ten years ago, Steve Wills and I became rather obsessed by this book, and it helped contextualise some of our thinking on Insight farming – the critical habit of discussing new research and analysis findings, checking facts and figures that seem at odds with existing learning, investigating contradictions, and building picture summaries drawn from multiple sources. It’s not just the summaries themselves that are critical, it’s the discussions between Insight people along the way.But as we think about Insight roles of the future, I think one of the behavioural roles that will give us great opportunities to expand our remit is that of the knowledge steward, where we are not only farming the collective insight produced by the Insight team, but checking, challenging, combining and curating the knowledge produced by many others around the organisation. Please listen to find out more! Topics DiscussedA framework for Insight management (2.02)Black Box Thinking: the differences between industries (4.39)The relevance for Insight teams (8.43)The importance of discussing insight (10.53)Learning from John Cleese (11.42)The emerging need for knowledge stewards (15.42)Thank you for 20,000 downloads! (22.57) This is episode 81 of the Transforming Insight podcast. If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, and the 9Ps of The Insight Leader’s Playbook, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening.  About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming InsightJames Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation. Resources:If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org DisclaimerThe Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.All rights reserved.   

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• Episode 80: Making transformation personal

  I hope you agree that these are all critical aspects to consider if we want to lead or play a part in the transformation of our Insight teams. By documenting and developing our ideas for each, we can clarify our ambitions, sketch out our designs, consider helpful habits, who we will need to talk to, and how we are going to review progress.But is that enough?I think the truth is that every Insight leader or aspiring leader who wants to achieve sustainable transformation for their Insight team and its impact on their organisation will also need to work on themselves and how they can personally become more transformational leaders.The 9th P of the Insight leader’s playbook is for Personal plan. Please listen to find out more! Topics DiscussedWhy do we need a personal plan? (0.43)Reading about personal effectiveness (3.29)Developing our ambition (6.56)Designing our week (8.47)Using the Insight leadership framework (13.31)Adopting helpful habits (18.43)  This is episode 80 of the Transforming Insight podcast. If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the secrets of successful corporate Insight teams and their leaders, as outlined in James Wycherley’s books, Transforming Insight and The Insight Leader’s Playbook, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening.  About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming InsightJames Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation. Resources:If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org DisclaimerThe Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.All rights reserved.   

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• Episode 79: Bigger than biscuits

  Some of the IMA’s most successful Insight leaders have gone one step further, and estimated the value that the Insight team itself has added each year, ultimately expressing this as a return on Insight investment.In today’s episode, James talks to two senior UK Insight leaders, Danny Russell (ex Sky and O2) and Suzanne Lugthart (formerly with ebay, ITV and Rightmove). They have just launched a new initiative called Bigger Than Biscuits that aims to catalogue some great examples of how Insight, research and analysis have added value to business decisions.Has your research led to a successful advertising campaign? Has your analysis led to cost savings or increased revenue by relocating stores or the way products are displayed in them? Has your joined-up insight helped reshape company strategy and unlocked hidden growth opportunities?If it has, your work could be an invaluable addition to this initiative and help other Insight professionals make the case for greater investment in Insight. Please listen to find out more! Topics DiscussedIntroducing Bigger Than Biscuits (2.56)Are CMOs spending less on market research? (6.59)Insight as a cost or investment? (10.20)Think commercially and keep a value log (14.02)It’s all about estimation (17.42)The ECB’s Hundred £1bn valuation (22.33)It starts with prioritisation (25.43)How to get involved (27.21)A challenge for all listeners (30.30) Highlights“It's the stuff that feeds the innovation pipeline. It's the stuff that feeds the creative platform development. It's all the work we do. I mean it's even stuff like customer experience research. It's anything that can help us diagnose a problem in a business so they can go and do something that will put it all right.” (04:46)“So those stories are there, but people just need the courage to let us work with them to get them out there. The point is that we have to assume that these very important stakeholders around the business let's call it nicely don't really understand and let's be realistic and say they don't really care about the incredible work that we're doing or the stresses that we're under, or the budgetary constraints, etc.” (17.19)“We'd go along and say, okay, you want our time and our budget, so tell me about this thing you're working on, how much money is it going to make and how much are we going to make a difference? And some of them hadn't really thought through and it was good for them to go back, and then they felt they were in this competition for our time and attention and suddenly you feel really quite elevated.” (24.46)“It's about being loud and proud, and if people are still too nervous about that, then just get onto LinkedIn and give us a follow on Bigger Than Biscuits, because that will at least mean they start to see the sort of work that we're doing. .” (29.41) This is episode 79 of the Transforming Insight podcast. If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the secrets of successful corporate Insight teams and their leaders, as outlined in James Wycherley’s books, Transforming Insight and The Insight Leader’s Playbook, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening.  About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming InsightJames Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation. Resources:If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org DisclaimerThe Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.All rights reserved.   

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• Episode 78: Assessing Insight’s performance

  Management guru Peter Drucker said many years ago that “what gets measured gets managed” which many have adapted to ‘what gets measured gets done’.Similarly, the second habit of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, was that we should all ‘begin with the end in mind.’ That’s why I decided to make the 8th P of the Insight Leader’s Playbook, P for Performance.Please could I ask you to reflect on a simple question:Q _ Has your Insight team had a good year so far?I hope you think it has! But what I’m really interested in is the thought process you just went through.How did you evaluate whether your Insight team had enjoyed a good year?What were the measures you considered? The types of evidence? Did you think about the outputs you can measure in this year, or the foundations you have laid for the next? Please listen to find out more! Topics DiscussedThe types of evidence we collect (2.19)Insight team assessment ladder (6.40)Investing in Insight assets (8.07)An Insight team’s critical assets (12.18)Knowledge as a critical asset (13.37) This is episode 78 of the Transforming Insight podcast.  If you have the ambition to transform your Insight team and the role it plays in your organisation, please tune in to future episodes. Not only will we explore the 42 secrets of successful corporate Insight teams as outlined in the Transforming Insight book, we will also talk to senior corporate Insight leaders, delve into books that have inspired us, and discuss new best practice research carried out with the IMA’s corporate members.You won’t want to miss this! So please subscribe - and thank you for listening.  About James Wycherley, the author of Transforming InsightJames Wycherley was Director of Customer Insight and Analytics at Barclays Bank from 2005 to 2015 when he became Chief Executive of the Insight Management Academy (IMA). He published his first book, Transforming Insight, in 2020, and his second, The Insight Leader’s Playbook, in 2025, and he hosts the Insight forums and the Transforming Insight podcast.An entertaining keynote speaker, he has presented over 50 times at Quirk’s events, a global record, and has provided thought leadership in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada, Australia, India and the Middle East.The Insight Management Academy is the world’s leading authority on transforming corporate Insight teams, and its vision is to inspire and support every Insight leader to transform the impact of Insight in their organisation. Resources:If you would like more information on any of the ideas discussed in this episode of the Transforming Insight podcast, please visit www.insight-management.org DisclaimerThe Transforming Insight podcast is published by the Insight Management Academy and produced by Zorbiant.All rights reserved.   

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