Greatest Hits – The New Shape of Insight: Five Voices Redefine Research, Strategy, and Human Behavior

Episode notes

Insight takes on its real shape when curiosity meets context. The research field has stretched far beyond reporting the past. Today, it guides decisions, influences strategy, and helps organizations understand the people they hope to serve. In this Greatest Hits episode of The Curiosity Current, host Stephanie Vance revisits five conversations that show how insight grows when it is handled with depth, imagination, and care. Adam Hagerman, a researcher and strategist whose career has spanned Apple, GLG, and Indeed, opens the episode with a shift that changed the way his teams worked. Instead of treating research as a confirmation step, he used theoretical frameworks to help people think more broadly about what they could build. He talks about the moment when leaders stopped looking for reassurance and started exploring possibility. His approach shows how structured thinking and narrative clarity can push teams toward ideas they might have overlooked. Lindsey Goodman, Consumer Insights Leader at Wolverine Worldwide, brings us into the world of lived experience. Ethnography allows her to watch people move through ordinary moments that carry unexpected weight.