The signal in the noise: how researchers can futureproof their own careers

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Summary

Mina McBride, strategic foresight practitioner, consultant, speaker, and facilitator, on closing the gap between insight and action — why translation from research to impact can break down before the project even begins (reputation, trust, and the 'filming in progress' mindset); how understanding the political landscape and psychology of your client is part of the researcher's responsibility; preparing stakeholders for emotional reactions to uncomfortable insights and reframing resistance as signal; foresight as preparation not prediction (scenarios as decision-context tools, less declarative language as a deliberate epistemic signal, empowering subject-matter experts as participants rather than passive recipients); separating meaningful career signals from noise by anchoring on priorities and strengths; taking calculated career risks when the signals say go even without certainty; breaking down risk into small, low-stakes actions (investigate a relationship, run a small experiment, do additional research) rather than betting the farm; CC101 STOP: doubting that your work matters because action is slow — the insight changes how people see the world from then on; CC101 ALSO: use AI tools but keep your hands and brains on any critical part until the tools get better; CC101 START: go dancing — intentionally move outside your comfort zone to notice things, and everyone now has the opportunity and expectation to be a maverick; closing question: ask yourself 'do I still love this work?' — if you do, learning comes easier, effort follows naturally, and you become more valuable.

Guest

Mina McBride — Strategic Foresight Practitioner, Consultant, Speaker, and Facilitator · Supplier-side

From this episode — top claims

• The one question researchers should ask themselves to make better career decisions is 'Do I still love this work?' This is not 'follow your passion' advice — it is practical: if you love your work, learning about it comes easier and time spent doing so is its own reward; you will put in more effort, your work will reflect it, and you will become more valuable. In an era where continuous self-education is no longer optional, loving the work is what makes the perpetual learning cycle sustainable rather than draining. — Ep. 76, Mina McBride
• When delivering challenging foresight or insight, prepare the client for the emotional reactions they will experience: start with a shared baseline of what they can agree on, then explicitly warn that they may feel resistance or disbelief. Reframe that resistance as signal rather than obstacle — 'pay attention if you want to dismiss something or if you want to laugh, because that is where true insights lie.' This empowers clients to recognize their own defensiveness and converts it from a barrier into a navigation tool. — Ep. 76, Mina McBride
• The underlying concern behind career-direction questions is 'how do I avoid risk and remain successful,' but certainty is unachievable and moving in any direction is inherently risky. When she pursued a graduate degree in strategic foresight, there were virtually no jobs in the field — yet her signals said it was a worthy investment. Sometimes you have to take what you see, the knowledge and experience you have, understand your own strengths, and just make a choice. — Ep. 76, Mina McBride

Full transcript

0:00 I see personally the work of market researchers as very much like that work of futurists. We're both trying to help our clients see beyond current assumptions, dig underneath what appears to be obvious to uncover those signals that indicate that hey change might be underway and that has implications for the future of our organization, the future of our clients.

0:00 Hello fellow insight seekers. I'm your host Molly and welcome to the Curiosity Current. We're so glad to have you here. And I'm your host Stephanie. We're here to dive into the fastm moving waters of market research where curiosity isn't just encouraged, it's essential. Each episode, we'll explore what's shaping the world of consumer behavior. From fresh trends in new tech to the stories behind the data. From bold innovations to the human quirks that move markets, we'll explore how curiosity fuels smarter research and sharper insights. So whether you're deep into the data or just here for the fun of discovery, grab your life vest and join us as we ride the Curiosity Current. Today on the Curiosity Current, we're joined by Mina McBride, a strategic foresight practitioner, consultant, speaker, and facilitator who helps people and organizations prepare for what comes next.

0:00 Mina's work focuses on closing the gap between what we know and what we actually do about it, helping leaders turn insights into practical decisions. Mina also believes researchers can use foresight to navigate their own careers, recognizing what truly matters and avoiding reacting to every new trend. So today, we're exploring why insights so often fail to produce action, how foresight creates clearer direction, and how researchers can distinguish real change from noise. Mina, welcome to the show.

0:00 Thank you, Stephanie and Molly. It's a pleasure to be here.

0:00 We're excited to have you. Let's jump right in. and your work is about helping people move from understanding a problem to doing something about it. What first drew you to that kind of gap between insight and then action?

0:00 Well, I think I have a couple of answers to that. Um, first, I've always had an interest in not just learning about a topic, but more importantly trying to figure out like what it meant to apply the knowledge that I had. But I would say specifically um as the second part like in foresight and in my professional career it was really clients who wanted to close the gap between insights and action. Clients always want to know like what should I do now? Um how do I translate this into action and I've found that it's rarely enough to just provide valuable insights or information. there's this entire skill set that we as insight professionals need to help recommendations be adopted. So I see personally the work of market researchers as very much like that work of futurists.

0:00 We're both trying to help our clients see beyond current assumptions, dig underneath what appears to be obvious to uncover those signals that indicate that hey change might be underway. And that has implications for the future of our organization, the future of our clients, maybe it's how they operate or communicate, or perhaps even the very basics of remaining viable. So, as you're thinking about how those insights translate into useful action items for a company, we find that organizations will often invest a significant amount of time into generating the insights only for those findings to have little effect on actually what happens next. It's more of an exercise to just get it done versus actually something that's useful to the business.

0:00 So where does that process that translation process from insight to action most commonly break down? Oo that's a really good question. It's my view that translation can break down actually even before the project begins. So for example, having already established a degree of trust or a certain level of reputation are factors that can affect decision makers actions even before we're in the room. So let's use a practical um example that we can all relate to. Right now um we're in the process of doing some renovations in our home. Now being responsible homeowners, we are, you know, having several people do bids. But let's just imagine for a moment that one of the people who are coming in to do a bid came highly recommended to me or I know someone else that they did work for.

0:00 So all else being equal, that bidder will probably win out. It's the same at work. We can be set up to win before we even start and nothing is said or there's no obvious indication that that particular thing is helping us. So, I have a sign up on my desk um at work and it says filming in progress. And what that sign's for, it is a reminder to me that every action can help us be more effective. Do we show up professionally? Are we known for bringing projects in on time? Are there organizational stories about who we are and the work that we've done? And do other people tell those stories? Or at the very least, can we tell them about ourselves even outside the organization? like what's our reputation outside of the organization.

0:00 So last year um Dr. Hines and I taught a class at the University of Houston as part of the foresight program. uh it was an elective and it was on like what does it take to activate the future or essentially like being the influential futurist and sometimes I think there's a tendency to think that a lot of the failure to activate is a failure on the client's part and frankly sometimes that's true but but but but there are many times when there are things that we can do before during and after the project that will really matter. So if we get past okay the stuff that is within our control another thing that we can do is look through the eyes of our client. So sometimes that's like the champion or the sponsor of that work or it might be a small team.

0:00 Think about what are their concerns? What's top of mind for them right now? Is the stock doing really well? So everybody's in a great mood or has there been trouble during the last earnings call? or maybe personally for our client are they feeling under pressure or are they considered like the golden child in the organization and therefore every decision they make puts them at a lot of risk. So to encourage activation we need to make the connection between the two. Our job is like to scaffold, build that bridge between what our client really wants and what they really care about and how our work helps them achieve that goal. That is super cool. I don't think I've ever heard anybody really talk about the importance of understanding like the political landscape and the psychology of your client, right?

0:00 And because I usually think when researchers are not activating that it's an issue of like empowerment or thinking that their role is just to be truthtellers but nothing beyond that. But I love this idea that like you should be thinking through like just having that empathy for the client to the point that you're really thinking about where do they sit in the politics of the company, where do they sit in terms of their own safety, etc. and helping them get from point A to point B and having that that that's part of your responsibility as the as the insights lead.

0:00 Absolutely. It may seem like taking on a lot, but at the end of the day, it actually winds up saving us time because it makes the process so much easier because our motives and the client's motives are aligned.

0:00 No, that makes sense. when an insight is, you know, when as an insights person, you discover this nugget that's strategically important, but maybe it challenges how that stakeholder or that client already sees the world or sees consumers or customers. In your experience, what kinds of things help them get from acknowledgement to action?

0:00 Oo, what flashed in my mind are sometimes you see something and you're like, "Oh my goodness, I'm going to have to say this." Um and I actually think it's a lot of good insights work falls into this category and in fact in foresight we like to start our projects with something that we call the baseline meaning like what are the things that we can agree on where absent any kind of surprising thing happening where do we imagine that the future is headed if we were to ask the average person where do they think the future's headed they're going to come up roughly in the same place that we are. So with that clear, we have sort of this understanding that we're starting at the same level of understanding and then that allows us to move from that into something new.

0:00 I also like to prepare a client for the emotional reactions that they might experience. Um as well as explaining in advance like how should they interpret those emotions. So for example, let's say I'm meeting with a group of leaders or a highle decision maker and I might say okay as we go through this you might find some of this hard to believe. Um you might even feel a little bit of resistance but there's evidence behind each signal and in fact I'm going to give you information where you can find that yourself. So it's a little bit of empowerment. they know they don't have to just trust me, but then they also know to expect this feeling of resistance and that resistance is telling them something.

0:00 So I might say, you know, pay attention if you want to dismiss something or if you want to laugh because that's where true insights lie. And a lot of times that happens with our work where um you're talking about something in the future and it just kind of seems ridiculous in today's context. And so that immediate reaction is to laugh like that's never going to happen. But it helps them recognize because they remember that we talked about that. Oh my gosh, I just laughed and now they know what to do with it versus that being something that stands in the way between the information that we gave and now wanting to act on it. Yeah, that setting expectations is really essential because it can be very easy in those circumstances, especially if it's a topic they know really well, to get very defensive and to push it off and then have it be ignored, which is probably the worst case scenario.

0:00 Absolutely.

0:00 Well, I I think since you mentioned it, we should go into this talking about foresight. Foresight can sometimes be mistaken for a crystal ball just predicting the future. Um, how do you help clients use foresight to make better decisions without pretending that they can actually know exactly what comes next in the future?

0:00 I'm going to actually connect this to what you just said because it made me think of subject matter experts. So I would say like in the early days um the way that we would handle like the idea of like we're predicting something or it will look exactly like this is we actually used to do sort of intro to foresight type sessions which clarified what foresight was and what foresight wasn't. Now I would say we do much less of those and instead it's embedded within the work. So if the work was created using scenarios, for example, we might say the real future might look like one of these, might look like none of these, or it might look like a combination somewhere of the scenarios that we're talking about.

0:00 But what our goal is is to use these scenarios to help us understand contextually what kind of decisions we're needing to make so that we could prepare. I would say another way is declarative statements. Especially going to a school where being evidence-based, it was really really pushed that if you were stating something or if you were writing something, be very declarative about what you're saying. So it actually goes against my academic nature to do this. But we use less declarative statements. So we might say in strategic places this could be or this might be to help people just have that little linguistic signal that oh this is something that we're still thinking about in the future or something that this isn't something that's cut in stone.

0:00 Now, to go back to when you were talking about subject matter experts, a lot of the people that I work with, especially in foresight, because of the type of foresight that I practice, it's um more as a generalist. And so, normally I'm going to be speaking to someone who has forgotten more about their field than most people are ever going to know. And so, what I do is like recognize that and let them know you are the subject matter expert. I'm here to help you see a different view or help you see something in the external world that could have implications that you might not see because you're so deeply steeped in what it is that you do. And what that does, I feel, is it empowers them to be a participant instead of just this passive recipient of what's being presented to them.

0:00 That's fascinating what you said about they have forgotten most of their field that most people will ever know. What a frame change. I've never thought of it that way. To your point, there gets to a point where you know so much that you might not understand signals that live outside of this because you live this, you breathe this every single day. And so you need that outside perspective, but like you said, presented strategically. Yes, absolutely.

0:00 Okay. So then to switch gears on us entirely and talk a little bit about how all of this applies to researchers in their careers. We know that researchers are constantly exposed to new technologies, new methods, new claims about how the profession is changing. I I don't think that's ever been more true than it is right now. How do we distinguish a meaningful signal from short-lived noise? And I guess like another way to ask this is how do we discern what will actually be important for our careers?

0:00 Yeah, it's I think part of goes along with part of like being a subject matter expert, right? People are like you would be interested in this. A colleague of mine calls this like looking for the magic beans um as far as like a way to what's going to be sort of like the thing that's going to make everything easier. And the best way I know of is to be clear about two things. your priorities and what your strengths are. And that can be both individually because as we know everyone now has to take this responsibility to make sure that they're furthering themselves as well as organizationally. So what are the priorities? What are your strengths? And clarity can make decisions so much easier. I think that we've all been in organizations where it's crystal clear what's super important in that organization.

0:00 So when something comes at us, we can very quickly go yes or no. We could put it in that inbox or the outbox just based on what we know the priorities are at that moment. So a quick test would be can you roughly describe and say a sentence or two what is it that you do well and why do you do what you do in an organization in an organizational context if the team is clear on that then decisions become more obvious. So when a new method or technology comes up instead of asking about like the technology or the method itself the question becomes more like does this line up with our priorities and our strengths and having that clarity will immediately eliminate a lot of the consideration set and effectively what it's doing is dampening that noise so we don't have to pay attention to so much.

0:00 And once a researcher, a very talented one, identifies that signal that can reshape the profession, what should they do? How should they work to use that to influence skills or roles or even opportunities for them to pursue in their careers? What I hear when I listen to that question is really an underlying deeper concern which is how do I avoid risk and remain as successful as I am and it's actually at the crux of the thing that our clients are asking to like how can I be certain I have to say I'm sorry I have yet to figure that one out to move in a direction is inherently risky And I think that's why there's so much hesitation because by moving in a direction we feel like we're cutting off options.

0:00 As an example, when I went back to school to earn a graduate degree in the field of strategic foresight, there were hardly any jobs in the field. I did my research and I mean no jobs. So if you were to go to LinkedIn and you were to look for a job as a futurist or maybe you said okay maybe not futurist but foresight analyst or you know start thinking of these synonyms there weren't any and at least if there were they weren't there on a regular basis yet my signals at the time said this is a worthy investment and I can remember doing an early presentation and one of the business owners in the audience said to me, um, do you really believe this foresight and these signals that you're talking about?

0:00 You know, being sort of young in the field, I thought about it for a moment and then I responded and I said, you know what? I better be because I've just bet my entire future on it. So, sometimes you're just going to have to leap. take what you see, the knowledge that you have, the experience that you have, understanding your own strengths, and then you just have to make a choice.

0:00 I just love in that story too, though, how like you, you know, used foresight to, you know, determine that your career in foresight was the right move and it clearly that's working out for you.

0:00 Yes. Very well.

0:00 I actually I have a followup to that. If you've lived in that yourself and you have identified that this is an investment that's worthy, how do you then convince a business to also see that perspective especially in in times where that type of work is inherently like you mentioned risky.

0:00 Yes. Um, one of the things that I do is sort of a setup before we get into foresight work is explain to them what to do with it. And I try to break down that risk by letting them know in advance that the actions that you can take can actually be relatively small. They're important, but they're not risking the farm. You're not betting everything to move in a direction. So, I think what most people think action looks like is one day we're creating these widgets and then we're going to learn something and we're no longer going to create those widgets, we're going to start creating this whole other different line of widgets and we're just going to completely change direction and not only are we going to change direction, we're going to do it really quickly.

0:00 And instead, what I'd like to encourage my clients to think is these types of things also count as actions. You could start investigating a relationship that you didn't have before. Maybe there's a vendor out there that you should be meeting and starting sort of those warm conversations and asking questions and doing additional research and learning more. Perhaps what you want to do is run a small experiment or a pilot or start talking and doing additional research to figure out what's the market for this right now. Are we too early? And like quite frankly, sometimes you might be too early. Like you're perceiving signals that are there and it's not prudent to actually act on them in the moment, but you can find that information out by doing these small things rather than saying, "Oh, the research said X, Y, and Z, so we should do some huge action." Yeah, I think that's important to kind of overcome that stigma of saying that, you know, we don't have to bet the farm in order to make some sort of foresight decision.

0:00 Yeah. And I think something that's coming through and like really a lot of what you're talking about is just the and Molly, you already said this too, but the sheer importance of particularly maybe in foresight research of expectation setting and educating and getting people ready even before the foresight starts coming in, right? and the and the data start coming in. There's a lot of education in this field uh in preparation. Super interesting. Well, Mina, we have a segment that we run on every episode of the Curiosity Current called the current 101 where we ask all of our guests the same questions. In your experience, what is one trend or practice in market research or foresight if you want to be more specific that you would like to see stop?

0:00 And then what is one trend or practice that you want to see more of? I love that one about stop like oo hope I hope I don't offend anyone. This might be foresight specific but I think it could also happen in market research. I would like us to have less doubt that our work matters because it seems like action is slow. So of course it matters. you are in a position to be able to influence. And when you identify a signal of change, whether you see this action that you think you should see or not, what it does is it changes the way people see the world from then on. So true. It might take a while for change to happen or even for our clients to be ready to change because sometimes that's something.

0:00 But in the meantime, know that your work has impact because it has changed the way that they now see that same fact from then on. I think another one would be to stop talking about AI. There, I said it. In the same way that no one um wonders about the worldwide web anymore, I think there will come a time when we will not talk about AI, especially when we're talking about generative AI. I like your analogy of a current, right? So the AI current is strong enough that we're going to be carried along. So we will no sooner miss what's going to happen in AI and its advances than decades ago people were likely to miss like the change from dial up to Wi-Fi. Google being used as a verb or the evolution of social media.

0:00 It's like those things are strong enough that we're going to go along with them. And AI is definitely like that now. It's the same. So use the tools to help you. Um, and until the tools get better, make sure that your hands and your brains remain on any part of that project that's considered critical. You don't want to be the consultant, and that's whether you're internal or external, whose work contains like fabricated footnotes or inaccurate analysis. And that's the point at which that cost for the efficiency that we're normally making becomes too high. So, I would say that was my stop. The thing to start I would say go dancing and I don't mean dancing necessarily like that might be might not be everyone's choice but what I'm thinking is move yourself out of intentionally your comfort zone and you can use things like going dancing or going to a part of town or even something as simple as not taking the same route home to throw yourself out of your comfort zone because that helps us notice things.

0:00 It helps us to um be able to see something. And so I think if we did more of that, uh I was actually reading something the other day and they said, you know, if you're forming an innovation team, make sure you have on it some at least one or two mavericks. And I think in our historical way of thinking about a maverick, it was sort of like the lone wolf person. Um, they were probably seen as like the superstar and they could get away with all kinds of things that no one else could get away with. I think our definition or at least our perception of what it means to be a maverick should change. Everyone now has that opportunity to be a maverick. And in fact, everyone is probably expected to exhibit a little bit of that maverick behavior.

0:00 Maverick behavior being if you're seeing something, being willing to speak up. You're willing to be the one to have that idea that might seem a little strange but has tethered to it something that's based in reality and can really help the project overall. So that would be my start. Go dancing.

0:00 I love that. I honestly, as whimsical as that sounds, I think that your answers to both of those questions are some of the most practical guidance for insights professionals that I've I've heard on the podcast. So, I really appreciate those. Those are great. My old boss, who I adore in my career, she would always say that your comfort zone is a beautiful garden where nothing ever grows. I always I took that to heart because there's a time and place for your comfort zone and then there's a time and place to challenge yourself to do something different. so that you can be uncomfortable and then grow from there. Not just in your career but in your knowledge base as well.

0:00 Absolutely. And it's almost like a muscle. It It's like as you do little things that are different, it builds the muscle and the tolerance to deal with all this uncertainty that we have.

0:00 Tolerance is a good point because the first few times you do that, it's going to be very uncomfortable and you're going to have that weird tingly feeling in your shoulders and your neck and you're going to be like, "Get me out of here."

0:00 Absolutely. And then you learn, oh, I, you know, I'm okay after or, oh, that was actually fun or, oh, that was actually interesting. And so, yes, I definitely say it's like a muscle and it's one that we need to strengthen. Well, thanks to you, Mina, I'm going to go and book that skydiving now.

0:00 You can't blame me for that one.

0:00 Well, I think to close us out, you've had some amazing practical advice. So, I'm going to ask for one more piece of practical advice. As researchers are navigating the world these days, what's one question that they should ask themselves or challenge themselves that they can do today to make better decisions about the future of their careers?

0:00 Ask themselves, do I still love this work? And I guess based into baked into that question or you know that statement that I said is is the assumption that at one point you did love it, but let's go with that. You did love it. Um, and here's why that's my answer. It's has nothing to do with the sort of follow your passions type thing that guidance that we're always getting. Instead, if you're in a position where you love your work, then learning about your work is going to come easier to you and the time you spend doing so is actually going to be its own reward. Not only that, but you're going to be willing to put in more effort. And because you put in more effort, your work's going to reflect it and that is ultimately going to make you more valuable.

0:00 So all of that is kind of tethered to this internal port part of yourself where you're saying, "Do I still love this work? If you do still love your work, then everything else will become easier."

0:00 I love that. It's a it's a seemingly easy question but a difficult one to actually sit and wrestle with and be honest with yourself.

0:00 Absolutely. And it's so critical now because we're going to have to there would be times in foresight we do an era analysis. So, in my mind, I'm doing like an era analysis, which is this concept of how were things in the past as a way of helping us at least have a baseline for what they look like now and be able to sort of compare like how long does change take. And one of the things that you can definitely see now if you were to do an era analysis of say worker self-education or something it was possible for you to have a job or and you really didn't have to do too much to keep up. You could actually get your skills, start your job and really not advance much past that. And we all know it's nothing new that yes, we're going to need to constantly be on this cycle of learning, cycle of improvement.

0:00 And some people luck out where their organization has a structure for that. So their organization's going to help them and their organization might actually do some pushing like this is not optional for you. But not everyone has that kind of structure. And sometimes if you're in that structure, you don't think you're lucky. But trust me, you really are. Not everyone has that structure and that means the onus is on them. It sort of lands on their doorstep. And so what makes it a lot easier is if you're inherently interested in what you're doing, then picking up that book or listening to that podcast isn't a struggle. It's something that like excites you and provides energy and it actually can make your life better.

0:00 So yeah, I'm definitely one of trying to infuse fun into my life wherever I can. Why should we make things so dreary? Joy. Joy can is like full of energy. It's infectious and it helps you perform better and it helps those around you perform better. So, whatever we can do to do that. So, ask yourself, do I still love this work? Well, Mina, this has been a truly wonderful conversation full of so much wisdom and practical applications for listeners. I really love how you talked about foresight work surfacing new and unexpected things and how sometimes it's more about how the insight is delivered rather than what is delivered.

0:00 I agree. I also really appreciated a peek into your process around preparing stakeholders and clients to receive foresight both psychologically and organizationally and your kind of sort of meta point about applying foresight to your own foresight career really stood out. Researchers do not need to react to every new tool and headline, but they do need a way to recognize which changes align to their priorities and their strengths. Well, Mina, Molly, and I are going to head out dancing now. Thank you so much for helping us think more carefully about turning insight into action and using foresight to navigate meaningful change.

0:00 Oh, thank you for having me. And to everyone listening, thank you so much for being part of the Curiosity Current. We'll see you next time. The Curiosity Current is brought to you by AYTM. To find out how AYTM helps brands connect with consumers and bring insights to life, visit atm.com. And to make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe to the Curiosity Current on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

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