Babette Bensoussan discovered the immense value of consumer insights in the 1980s when she was working as a Communications Manager at Apple. Despite the fact that Apple discouraged its employees from conducting consumer research at the time, Babette quickly fell in love with customer intelligence (CI). To her, it was clear that CI serves as a basis from which to develop sound strategies, not only in business, but also in life.
A self-proclaimed Decision-Making Maverick™, Babette has held many titles throughout her career, from Marketing Manager to Professor to Business Coach. She now runs her own company Mindshifts, where she helps organizations, business leaders and professional executives improve their decision-making capabilities. Babette has relied on CI to inform her decisions every step of the way.
Tune into this week’s episode of Running into the Fog for a conversation between Babette and the Jo Bros about the incredible power of CI and where executives fall short when they don’t capitalize on it. Learn why analytical frameworks are like jigsaw puzzle pictures, why collaboration requires humility, and how your best students can ultimately become your biggest competitors. Most importantly, hear Babette’s take on why in order to be coachable, you need to be willing to run through the fog.
Quotes
- “I realized that a lot of corporations, a lot of executives were developing strategies in vacuums. You know, they’re all thinking they’re going to be number one, they all want to do this kind of stuff without any understanding of the external world in which they competed.” (9:24-9:41)
- “I’m a firm believer that we should all be doing the process of CI in every aspect of our life because it’s all about making better decisions.” (14:50-15:02)
- “We have so much information now that we don’t understand what that information means anymore. And without an analytical framework, how do you sort that information out?” (17:38-17:54)
- “If you don’t want to run through the fog, you can’t be coached. Quite easy. If you’re not willing to run through that fog, to learn, to question yourself, then you’re really not coachable. You’re not ready for being coached. But if you want to run through the fog, if you want someone to run beside you, to help you, then you are coachable.” (26:17-26:42)
- “I think humility will always identify how much collaboration you’ll have in anything….We talk about humility, but I talk about it as the willingness to learn. The moment you believe you have nothing to learn or you’re ‘fine’…you’re no longer teachable.” (32:15-32:51)
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/babettebensoussan/
https://twitter.com/BabetteBen
https://nexaurorawdc.wpengine.com/
Arik JohnsonLinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/arikjohnson/
Derek JohnsonLinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/derek-johnson-cfa-190893/