At some point in your journey as a research leader, you realize great insights aren’t enough.
You’ve run rigorous studies, surfaced saucy findings, and yet decisions still happen without research.
Early in my career, I thought if the research was good enough, it would speak for itself. It didn’t.
I poured hours into slide decks that were never opened.
I ran studies that perfectly answered the wrong question.
I gave talks where stakeholders smiled politely… and then went right back to what they were already doing.
It was frustrating. I knew research had value, but I was waiting for others to see it.
What I didn’t realize was that doing the research wasn’t enough. My job was to make research undeniably useful.
That’s when I stopped waiting and started evangelizing. Here are the 4 most powerful lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Lesson 1: Immerse people in the experience, not just the findings
Early in my career, I joined a large company with an engineering-driven culture. One where “build first, validate later” was the default.
To shift that culture, we started opening the doors to our research sessions. We invited everyone: engineers, PMs, data analysts, content managers, designers. We wanted people to see, hear, and feel what our customers were experiencing, not just read about it later in a report.
As demand grew, we introduced “listening sessions” where PMs and designers could bring their top questions and connect directly with customers. I still guided study design and helped fine-tune their approach, but the real power was in firsthand exposure.
Immersion does something a slide deck never can: it bypasses skepticism. Instead of debating my interpretation, stakeholders processed what they saw and heard themselves. Roadmaps shifted. Priorities changed. My role evolved from persuading people why to helping them decide what and when.
Lesson 2: Make insights as easy to share as a good playlist
Once people start living the research firsthand, the next step is making those insights portable. Easy to share, recall, and apply without you in the room.
Eventually, on my long and winding research journey, I realized I was trying to get people to listen to full albums when all they really wanted was that one catchy track that made them feel something. Or at the very least didn’t put them to sleep.
I stopped chasing perfect, 50-slide decks and started creating bite-sized formats:
- A single, high-impact customer quote
- A two-slide, lightweight, deck or “research snacks”
- A 30-second video clip
- A one-page “Insight-to-Action Map” linking findings to solutions, engineering effort, and product priorities
I like to think of it like making a playlist. You’re curating tracks people can pass along. When they start sharing them, you’re no longer the only one doing the advocating, and the research begins to move on its own.
Lesson 3: Plant seeds with fast, scrappy feedback
Once you’ve made insights easy to share and digest, the next challenge is keeping that momentum going. Especially when things move fast and the clock is ticking.
When I worked with startups, speed was everything.
Monday was the data call. Someone would share the latest scraps of feedback. I’d distill it into two or three key questions, head out to field (often at my local Starbucks) where I’d ask for feedback from unsuspecting customers, and have answers by the end of the week.
Sometimes, there wasn’t even a deck. Just a quick Slack post while I was out guerilla testing so people in the office could react right away. No delays. The insights were in play before anyone had time to overthink it.
I’m happy to announce that after plenty of trial and error and some very late nights, this approach helped us find product-market fit.
Lesson 4: Let people remix your work
Fast, scrappy feedback gets things moving. But to make research truly stick, you need to help your team own the insights. You need your team remixing and repeating them until they become part of the culture.
In my own consultancy, I’ve made short Instagram reels with the Top 3 research findings from a sprint. I’d share them in a quick huddle or email blast. Then I’d repeat them. And repeat them again.
That’s the secret. People rarely remember something the first time they hear it. But by the third or fourth time, they’re repeating it themselves.
Good insights are like tracks on a playlist. When someone hears one that resonates, they add it to their set.
They drop it into a pitch deck.
They cite it in a planning doc.
They bring it up in a meeting you’re not even in.
And that’s the goal. Not to be the loudest voice in the room, but the steady beat underneath every conversation.
When your insights start moving without you, getting shared and remixed by the team, you know you’ve truly won.
So here’s what it comes down to: immerse people in the research, make insights easy to share, deliver fast feedback, and help your team own the story.
Do that, and research won’t just be something you do. It’ll be something your whole org lives by.
