Got Insights?

This week, I had the opportunity to present at a global summit, in Vancouver, Canada. The event was chaired by Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor of Fortune and included great speakers such as Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics.

As I was reflecting back on the sessions and the many discussions I had with attendees, a key theme kept coming back to me: you can summarize it by calling it "Unusual insights....coming from unusual sources."

For instance, we were reminded of the example of UPS, which saved 3.1 million gallons of fuel by optimizing routes to prioritize right turns. Steven Levitt shared with us the story of one IRS employee who had come up with the idea that saved the IRS Billions...yes...Billions of dollars. If you want to know more about these stories, feel free to watch my 3 min video blog at http://tinyurl.com/got-insights

Many of these insights were obvious but some were less. It feels however that the real discovery here has less to do with the answer than it has with asking the question! What did it take in each of these examples to enable the answer? (here, I don't mean the enabling technology, but the courage to ask the question and the tenacity to look for the right answer).

Do you have similar stories?

Share your stories and also tell us where the insights come from. A regular employee, an intern, a manager, an executive?

Best,

Bruno Aziza

Co-author, Drive Business Performance

Follow @ http://twitter.com/brunoaziza

Subscribe to my blog @ http://tinyurl.com/culture-blog

Sources:

UPS story @ http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/07/10/right_turns_make_the_most_out_of_gas/

IRS story @ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/magazine/02wwln_freak.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin