Insightful Board Material. What does that mean exactly?

Insights are powerful and can lead to better decisions.  Management can leverage the knowledge and experience in their board room when they provide more insightful information.

But how do you actually provide insightful board material?

In brief:
💡 Include data, trends & comparative information
💡 Say what it means and why it matters

But that is pretty simplistic.  

Let’s dive a little deeper to explore:

• what it means to be insightful

• where you might uncover insights, &

• how to describe your insights to your executive or board members.

What is Insightful?

The dictionary meaning of an insight is “a clear, deep, and sometimes sudden understanding of a complicated problem or situation” [Cambridge Dictionary]. Essentially, data and information, although useful, is not insightful on its own. It is the interpretation of information that provides insights. 

Key Components of Insightful Information

To distinguish between information and insights, consider whether the following components are present:

1.       Impactful: Insights must be about something that matters, such as a significant problem that needs to be solved or a situation that needs to be avoided. The impact can occur over a long period and influence future strategy and key decisions.

2.       Accurate:  Insights should be based on information and assumptions that are factual, complete, causally connected and unbiased. 

3.       Illuminating: Insights help explain or contextualize why something is (or is not) happening.  It may be necessary dig deep to understand the underlying reason behind the trend or outcome. 

4.       Solution-oriented:  Insights provide new ideas or possibilities that can uncover potential options and recommendations.

If you have these components, you usually have something worth sharing.

Where to Look for Insights

Are you wondering where to uncover insights that are worth sharing with your executive team or board of directors?  According to this article in HBR Where to Look for Insight (hbr.org), this is how you might uncover insights: 

🔎 Anomalies - Examine deviations from the norm

Do you see unexpectedly high or low revenue or share in a market or segment? Surprise performance from a business process or a company unit?

🔎 Confluence - Find macro trend intersections

What key economic, behavioral, technological, or demographic trends do you see? How are they combining to create opportunities?

🔎 Frustrations - Pinpoint deficiencies in the system

Where are customer pain points for your products, services, or solutions? Which organizational processes or practices annoy you and your colleagues?

🔎 Orthodoxies - Question conventional beliefs

Are there assumptions or beliefs in your industry that go unexamined? Toxic behaviors or procedures at your company that go unchallenged?

🔎 Extremities - Exploit deviance

What can you learn from the behaviors and needs of your leading-edge or laggard customers, employees, or suppliers?

🔎 Voyages - Learn from immersion elsewhere

How are your stakeholders’ needs influenced by their sociocultural context?

🔎 Analogies - Borrow from other industries or organizations

What successful innovations do you see applied in other disciplines? Can you adapt them for your own?

Writing Insightful Board Reports

Here is a basic outline to get you started in writing a clear and insightful report to your executive team and/or board. 

1.  Context and background

Briefly explain the current situation and why it is relevant and important to the organization.

2.  Learnings

Describe the data, information and observations that form the basis for insights, and what it means.

3. Underlying Reasons

Explain the known or potential reasons for the trend or activity that has been identified.  Be clear about what is known, what is an assumption and what is hypothesized.

4.  Impact

Explain what this particular insight leads to, or what impact does it could have on the organization, strategy, product/service, stakeholder, etc.  Explain what will happen if you don't act on this insight.

5. Next steps 

Identify potential options, solutions and/or recommended next steps.

Bonus💡 Focus on the most informative & persuasive information. Research shows that including too much information dilutes the message.

Follow these tips in order to identify and share insightful information that will engage your board in powerful discussions and better decisions.