How will you support and instill confidence in others? (1-26-26)

If you’re in the Midwest, I hope you are surviving the snow. This is a bonus blog. The question for us to reflect on is, “How will I support and instill confidence in others?”

Last week I was invited to speak at and attend the Insights Association CEO Summit. It was a conference filled with insight leaders across various functions and industries. There were companies of all sizes and focus areas. If I’m being honest, I was a bit nervous about speaking there. I’m not a deep technical market research expert. I’m not a CEO level leader. I’m not someone who knows all of the technical ins and outs of every last AI model and offering.

I call my parents the night before I’m supposed to give my talk. I’m on speaker phone with both of them talking about the flight down, the nice weather, etc. I mention that my talk is tomorrow. I start to say that I’m nervous, and before I can fully finish the sentence my mom says, “You were invited for a reason.” It wasn’t some over the top rah-rah moment. It wasn’t overly emotional or mushy. It was a strong direct statement of factual support. My mom repeated herself, “You were invited for a reason.” She was saying, “They wouldn’t invite you if you weren’t good. Whoever invited you felt that you had something worthy to say or they wouldn’t put their neck out. You’ve done good work. You’re more than capable. Just do the thing.” It was a nice confidence boost, and things went well the next day.

What does this have to do with work? I have a memory from early in my career that will always be burned into my memory. I was a young associate, relatively new to my role. Bryan Lapel, who led the function at the time, brought me into a room and said something like, “This is a complicated mess. I’m 100% confident that you will deliver.” He said it in a tone that the outcome was inevitable. It was probably a 30 second conversation. I stepped out of that enclave like, “Get ready world! I’m going to run through some walls now!” Have you ever had a moment like that where a leader instilled that level of confidence in you? Have you ever been able to deliver a moment like that for someone else?

The challenge: How will you support and instill confidence in others?

Andrew Embry

15 Years and Muscle Up Buttercup (6-8-22)

This month marks 15 years for me at Eli Lilly. Throughout my career I’ve spent time in sales, training, ghost writing for the CMO, market research, and marketing. It’s been a wild ride, and with that in mind I’d like to kick off a series about the moments that have stuck with me throughout my career. Some will be positive and some won’t be so rosy. This week is about the power of showing your belief in someone.

A few years ago I was on the market research team. I was leading the team in some pivotal messaging research, and EVERYTHING was going wrong. We were having problems with recruiting. We were having problems with technology. The interviews were clunky. Everything was falling apart. I felt like a failure and I was so frustrated.

While all this was going on my key business partner at the time wrote me a little note. It said something like, “If I had to be in a burning clown car of market research it would be with you. Muscle up, buttercup!” First, this made me chuckle. Second, it was great leadership. By writing this note to me she was saying, “I get that everything is falling apart, but I believe in you. If you won’t believe in yourself right now on your own, at least believe in yourself because I see what you can do. I trust you to lead us out of this.” That few words meant the world to me. Eventually, we were able to make everything come together, and we created an awesome message that helped us hit our goals and help out a lot of patients.

What does this have to do with anything? As a leader, sometimes it is our job to encourage people when they are at their low point. This isn’t about lying to them. It’s not about telling them that everything is okay. It’s about seeing their strength, demonstrating you believe in them, and then showing them that you have faith they will deliver. I don’t know about you, but often when I’m at a low point, the mere act of someone else showing their faith in me is enough to help me keep going.

The challenge: How are you demonstrating your faith in others?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Prioritization Lessons from Market Research (5-23-18)

Last week was about urgency, finding clarity, and prioritization. Tacey also shared some great thoughts about how we are often more accustomed to fighting fires and how preventing fires requires a different set of skills and planning. With that in mind, I want to get a little more tactical this week and dive into lessons I’ve learned from market research regarding prioritization. My hope is you might be able to apply some of this to prevent some fires in your life.

In market research there are always a million questions we could answer, but that does not mean we should answer all of them. Early in my career when people had a request of me, I asked myself two things. First, do I have the ability to do that? Second, do I have the extra time to do that? My answer to both of those questions was always yes. It wasn’t a yes, because it was true. It was often a yes, because I wanted to impress people by being able to do a lot of stuff. Market research has taught me that it’s possible to do stuff and answer a business question that adds NO value to the business. In those cases, doing all the work just results in wasted energy and time.

You might be wondering where this is going. Over time, I learned that I needed to get better at prioritization. In order to do that I needed a system that would help me define the value of the question I needed to answer, because prioritization always starts with understanding what you value. This brings me to the prioritization grid below, which I stole from Challis Imes, who stole it from Karen Wurster, who stole it from a sage spouting ancient wisdom in the Himalayas.

	Confident we already know the answer	Unsure of the answer
High impact to the business	B Don’t do new work. Spend your time and effort synthesizing existing work to find new insights.	A Prioritize this work and try to spend most of your time and effort here.
Lower impact to the business	D Avoid this like the plague.	C Don’t spend much time in this bucket.

I’ve found that putting things into this grid makes me do two things. First, it makes me spend time really thinking about the questions I’m being asked to answer and their potential value. Second, it gives me a framework to have a conversation about prioritizing things with stakeholders. Once I’ve plotted the questions I can go back to the team and say, “Here is how I view the world. Here is where everything fits for X, Y, and Z reasons. Do you feel differently? If so, what is your argument for making something an A priority?” These are great conversations, because it forces us to find alignment. Usually one of two things happens. We either realize we know more than we think we do, so we can deprioritize stuff, or I learn some context I didn’t have before, which gives me a better understanding of why something is important.

As I continue to work on developing my prioritization skills, I’ve taken the grid concept and applied it to other things in life. While the axes on the grid might change, it always gives me the structure I need to clearly define the value of things.

The challenge: How are you going about prioritizing things?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Market Research, Interpreting Data, and Triangulation (2-21-18)

This will be the last in the series about lessons I’ve learned from working in market research. We’ve talked about defining problems, mitigating risk, collecting stories, establishing decision criteria, and being objectively passionate on behalf of our customers. This week we are going to think about market research, interpreting data, and triangulation.

Let’s pretend for a minute you asked me to do some kind of research project. Let’s say I came back to you and told you the answer was 5. Is that good or bad? Are you prepared to make a decision? I’m guessing that you probably aren’t.

You’re probably thinking that’s a strange opening and you might be wondering what that has to do with anything. Throughout my career I have often heard people say something along the lines of, “The data will speak for itself.” The problem is that data doesn’t speak for itself. Data on its own has no meaning. Data only has the value we assign to it. The power of data lies in how we interpret it. For some situations if the answer was 5 that could be a great thing. If the question was, “By what percentage have your sales increased in the past month?” 5 could be a great answer. In other situations, 5 wouldn’t be so great. For example, if your market share was 5%, but it was forecasted to be 20% there might be an issue.

The longer I’m in market research the more I realize how important it is to be able to interpret data. Also, I continue to learn that part of the skill in correctly interpreting data is triangulating. It’s taking the time to look at the problem and research from multiple angles to make sure that everything is saying something similar. If one thing is telling me the answer is 5, another is telling me it’s 26, and another is telling me the answer is purple there is probably a gap in my understanding. The only way to find the truth is to triangulate.

Now everything above applies to market research, but it also applies to life. How often have you talked to someone who has come to conclusions based on one piece of data or only one side of an argument? How often are you that person? I know I’m that person sometimes. It’s easier to take the data that is readily available, assume that data speaks for itself, and not take the time to triangulate. The problem is that whenever I’ve done this I’ve missed part of the story and have missed the truth as a result.

The challenge: Are you actively trying to triangulate, so you can better interpret the data in front of you?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Market Research and being Objectively Passionate (2-14-18)

Last week was about market research, being a security guard, setting up velvet ropes, and establishing decision criteria. This week is what I’ve learned about being “objectively passionate” on behalf of our customers. I’ll dive more into that in a moment, but first an analogy.

Pretend for a moment that you are a master brewer and in particular you love beer and love making beer. You are going to open a bar where you will serve beer and other beverages you’ve created. When you look at your potential market you see there are a lot of people like me and a lot of people like my wife (Diane). You know that Andrews like a variety of beers and enjoying experimenting with new things. You know Dianes don’t like beer of any kind (AT ALL) and instead prefer fruity tasting beverages. As a master brewer, how much time do you invest in trying to make a beer that Dianes will like? I’m assuming you wouldn’t try to make beer for Diane, because she doesn’t like beer at all and your chances of changing her are slim to none. Instead, you’d probably try making different beers to entice Andrews and you’d create fruity cocktails to bring in Dianes. At least that’s probably what you would do if you put your customers’ needs above your own biases and desires. This is probably what you would do if you were “objectively passionate” on behalf of your customers.

So what does this have to do with work and market research? I’ve discovered that one of my core jobs is to be “objectively passionate” on behalf of our customers. My job isn’t about doing what Andrew thinks is cool (especially, because I’m not cool). Being “objectively passionate” means always keeping the customer in mind as we do things. It means always thinking about them, what makes them tick, and leveraging that knowledge as we create campaigns, messages, solutions, etc. It means saying no to things that don’t connect back to customers, who they are, and what they need. All of the this sounds easy, but it can be difficult. Sometimes, you fall in love with an idea, because it’s shiny and it sounds great to you. Then, it’s really hard to admit when that awesome idea you are in love with doesn’t work with the customer. Have you ever seen someone fall in love with an idea that didn’t really connect back to the customer and their needs? Have you ever been that person? I have.

Embry work example. Last week I mentioned doing market research on some new data with customers. The data didn’t work very well for certain types of customers, because it didn’t connect with who they are and the tensions (problems) they have. As we shared the fact that the data didn’t work too well for some customers, there were some individuals who were especially disappointed because they loved the data we were testing. Being in love with the idea, they wanted to save it, so they would say things like, “What if you changed the headline or the graph or something else? That could make it work.” Eventually, we said, “The idea doesn’t connect with these people because of who they are. It doesn’t address the tensions they have. Even if we tweaked the headlines and things it wouldn’t make a difference.” Per my analogy, it would be like serving Dianes beer. They aren’t going to like it. Sure it’s possible that we might be able to find a magic beer out there that Diane would like, but the chances of that happening are low. We’d be better off investing that energy creating fruity cocktails she would more than likely enjoy.

The challenge: Are you being “objectively passionate” on behalf of our customers?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Market Research, Velvet Ropes, and Decision Criteria (2-7-18)

Last week was about market research and mitigating risk. This week we will think about market research as it relates to decision criteria, security guards, and setting up a velvet rope. Somewhere in our life we have all probably ran into a situation with a security guard and a velvet rope. Security uses a velvet rope or some kind of tape to set up some parameters and borders. The security guard then works the entrance. They are given criteria to examine, such as a valid driver’s license. If the person meets the criteria they are admitted. If they do not meet the criteria they are turned away. It’s that simple.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with market research and work for that matter. Market research isn’t about asking questions for the sake of asking questions. Market research is about trying to help the business make better decisions. Over time I’ve learned that if you want to make quick, efficient, and quality decisions, you need to establish clear decision criteria. Essentially, you need to become a security guard. You need to set up your velvet rope and only let things through that meet that criteria. (That’s right. I consider myself a market research bouncer. The picture to the right is me if I lost some of my muscles.)

Embry failure and learning example. Last month the brand team tested some new data with customers. We had to make a decision on whether or not to share the data with customers in the market. In the beginning of the project I didn’t set up clear decision making criteria, so we swirled a bit whenever we talked about how the research was going (#Embryfailure). The swirling was a waste of time and didn’t get us closer to making any decisions. Then, I finally realized that I needed to set up some decision criteria to help us decide whether this data “worked” with customers or not. With that in mind we decided that in order for the data to “work” it would need to meet three requirements.

Accept– Customers would have to accept the data as something that could be true.
Resonate– The data had to cause customers to think more positively about Trulicity.
Implement– We had to feel confident that we could implement around any customer concerns.

We even took it a step further to establish the criteria that would have to be met for each of those three components. For example, for Accept customers had to accept the data could be true over all, was representative of their practice, and was high enough quality that they would accept the data as being factually accurate. What I soon noticed was that as soon as we had clear decision criteria, it became easier to decide if something worked or not. The decision criteria gave us a framework for making the decision and for talking about the decision. Overall, it became a lot easier to decide whether or not we should let the data past our velvet rope and into our club (#Embrylearning).

The challenge- Think about your role. Are you setting up clear decision criteria to help drive quick, efficient, and quality decisions?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Problem Definition and Asking the Right Questions (1-24-18)

Throughout my time in market research I’ve picked up on a few fundamental lessons and skills that are transferable to other situations and life in general, so this week we’ll kick off a series inspired by lessons I’ve learned while working in market research. We’ll start this series by exploring problem definition and the idea that that you are only as good as the questions you ask.

My car is currently making a ticking noise. What should I do? Should I fix it? It depends on my understanding of the problem and its implications. These seemingly straight forward and simple questions are actually not that simple or straight forward. The assumption is that if something is broken I should fix it. However, if I pause for a second and ask some questions I may not come to that conclusion. What do I think is wrong with the car? How big of a deal is the problem? Why would I want to fix it? What is the car worth? How much would I be willing to spend on a repair before it wasn’t valuable? In my case the car is a 10 year old Pontiac Sunfire with over 200,000 miles. The ticking isn’t a serious problem, and instead it’s just an annoying sound. Even if it was a serious problem, I’m running the car into the ground anyway, so it’s not worth spending the money for me. Bottom line, I’m not going to pay to have it fixed. However, if the car was newer and the sound was serious I might come to a different conclusion and decide to fix it.

How does this connect to work? Over my career I’ve realized that everyone (myself included) makes a lot of assumptions about things and we often rush to fix the wrong problem or problems that don’t really matter. It’s really easy to see some bit of data or to see a problem and instantly decide we need to do something about it. Do you ever fall into this trap?

In my market research role, a big chunk of my job is working with my partners to define what problems we are trying to solve and I’ve learned that I’m only as good as the questions I ask. As a result I’ve tried to get better at pausing and thinking through things. Instead of running in and trying to solve the problem, I’m trying to evolve to be more like, “Yes, that’s a potential problem. How big is that problem? Is it a problem we need to solve? Why or why not? Is it even a problem we think we could solve? Do we need to solve that problem at the expense of these other problems we think we need to solve? Are we confident we are even solving the right problem? If I got you an answer, how would you use it to solve your problem?”

Once we get through those questions, if we still need to solve it, then we can start trying to figure out potential solutions. However, you’d be amazed at how often I’ve worked through those questions and I’ve come to realize I was trying to solve the wrong problem, trying to solve a problem that our customers don’t really care about, or trying to solve a problem the wrong way.

The challenge: If you are only as good as your questions, are you taking the time to ask questions to better understand and define the problem?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Being Intentional and Driving Desired Beliefs with each other (1-3-18)

Happy New Year! I hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday season. As we begin 2018 I’m sure we have various goals that we would like to accomplish. I’d like to kick-off the year with a blog series focused on goals that involve the people side of things. In particular I want us to think about setting goals to improve the relationships we have with the people around us. I’d like us to do this by looking at how intentional we are about the marketing process and applying that to how we interact with each other.

Marketing is all about understanding and influencing people’s beliefs to help them find solutions to their problems. Recently, I did some message evolution work with my wonderful brand, market research, and creative agency partners. Message evolution work is about deciding what are the DESIRED beliefs you want a specific group of customers to have and then deciding what REASONS TO BELIEVE (think of supporting points like data, science, images, written messaging, etc.) you could share to drive people to have that belief. You then test these concepts and use what you learn to create campaigns and stories that drive those desired beliefs. All of this requires discipline and the team being intentional about choosing which desired beliefs they want to drive.

Let’s think about a real world example. Think of Ford Mustangs. What do they want you to believe about Ford Mustangs? Look at the image I pulled from Google about the Mustang and the message it conveys. To me this suggests that they want you to believe something like, “Mustangs show the world that you are successful, tough, and driven.” Think of Subaru. What do they want you to believe? Look at the image. Subaru wants you to believe that Subarus are safe and reliable. These campaigns both started with the brands identifying what desired beliefs they wanted to drive, and then they could try to drive those desired beliefs with images, text, etc.

What does this have to do with anything? Instead of thinking about brands, let’s go in a slightly different direction. Much like a brand, when we interact with people we cause them to feel a certain way. What desired feeling are you trying to drive with the people you work with? Seriously, pause for a moment and give the answer to that question a thought. Do you have an answer? How intentional are you about trying to make people feel that way?

In case you’re wondering, here is the primary feeling I’m trying to create with people. I want them to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I care about them and the work we do together.I want them to know I care about them and our work, because I believe if they know I care about them we will have a better working relationship and we will be able to do amazing work, which will help more patients.

The challenge: If we want our relationships to evolve, we need to be intentional about the feelings we are trying to create with the people we work with. What feeling are you trying to drive?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Market Research, being a Stunt Person, and Assessing Risk (1-31-18)

Last week we kicked off a series on lessons learned from market research by reflecting on problem definition and the questions we ask. This week I want us to think about market research, being a stunt person, and taking risks.

Let’s pretend that you are a well-trained stunt person for action movies (I know this is my real life, but might be a stretch for some of you). You know in this upcoming movie you’ll be doing a lot of jumping and falls and things. Do you need a parachute? The answer is, “It depends.” (See what I did there, tying it back to the first blog in the series). If you’re jumping out of a plane for a scene, then yes you need a parachute. If you are jumping off of a balcony or something, the parachute wouldn’t be necessary, but maybe you’d want some kind of foam padding to land on. If you were doing some chase scene on foot where you were just jumping over stationary objects, you probably wouldn’t need anything. In this example, the equipment you would need to keep you safe is dependent on the risk you are incurring. The bigger the risk, the more likely you need something to help you mitigate that risk.

You’re probably wondering how being a stunt person ties back to work. Mitigating risk is what we do in market research. What I’ve found over time is that the impulse is to try and eliminate ALL risk. The impulse is to always do more and more market research to justify and support every situation. The impulse is to wait until you know every small little thing before ever taking action. If you think of the example above, the impulse is to give everyone parachutes, even though this doesn’t always make sense. While I understand and have given in to this impulse from time to time, I also know that no matter what we do we CAN’T eliminate ALL risk. Do you ever feel this way? Do you ever feel like you have to do so much additional stuff to eliminate ALL risk before you can take action?

Here’s the difficult part, and the thing I’m still working on. The difficult part is being able to look at the situation and gauge an accurate estimate of what the risk is, so I can respond accordingly. Sometimes we are jumping off into the great unknown, so a parachute is needed. Most of the time though, we know more than we realize and it’s a matter of pulling those thoughts together to guide us or having the faith that we know enough to act. After all, we’re all well trained stunt people, and I’m pretty sure we are tough enough to take on a few bumps and bruises along the way.

The challenge: Are you honestly assessing the risks you faced or are you always trying to get a parachute for a street chase? Are you focused on mitigating OR eliminate risk?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry