Three Questions to Assess a Person’s Insight

The business and the world today are hyperconnected and over-complex, digital leaders and professionals need to not only make observation carefully, but also should capture insight which is the deep intuitive understanding of things, and it often breaks through the conventional wisdom, in order to gain true wisdom. But which questions should you ask to assess a person’s insight?  


Does insight come through critical thinking or creative thinking? Insight is thinking into the box after thinking out of the box. Thus, insight takes both creativity and reasoning, intuition and logic, the power of acute observation and deduction, questioning, connection, penetration, discernment, perception called intellection. Insight is the excellent job via left brain and right brain’s connection and collaboration, both via creative thinking and critical thinking. Insight is the vision through ‘mind's eyes,’ the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intuitively in Greek called noesis. The insight of situation requires in-depth understanding. It’s about the understanding of one´s possibilities, adversaries, environments effects and other stakeholders’ behavior. The more complex the situation is, the more different approaches and role gaming is needed to reach for understanding. So insight does not just fuel creativity, but also make creativity more tangible and embed creativity with other thought processes to create value and produce the new knowledge.
Can you often dig into the root cause of a problem, or only catch the symptom? Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect in a specific context. Insight is being able to identify the root cause of a problem or the core issues of a situation which leads to understanding and resolution. Insight is about penetrating and often sudden understanding, as of a complex situation or problem. Too often people may take the easy path, think and work at a superficial level rather than spend the time to understand what is going on underneath. Insight is an understanding of cause and effect based on the identification of relationships and behaviors within a model, context, or scenario.
Which level are you on the pyramid of information-knowledge-insight -wisdom? Information is only a click away, knowledge is gained through learning. Insight is one's experience & exploration process, and introspection. Now digitalization is shortening the knowledge life cycle significantly, knowledge could be outdated soon, but insight lasts longer. it doesn’t mean that knowledge is less important, it’s the foundation to build insight upon. However, knowledge alone is not sufficient, insight is the most wanted and abstracted knowledge to “empower” a good strategy and its implementation. A collective insight is superior -. If a team clicks, it may reach shared insight of situation which is always better than individual belief.
Amplifying digital influence is not about how loud you can speak, but how insightful you can perceive or how foresightful you can see. Knowledge is no doubt important but more than that is complete awareness of what is happening in the context. Once you do that, you use your ability to classify the elements and know their linkage and capture the insight to understand things thoroughly. Knowledge is the power, you need to have the insight to apply it at the right time in the right circumstance with the right attitude. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu