Most of us recognize that groundbreaking innovations are rarely developed by individuals but by exceptional teams. So, how can we design teams that deliver new solutions to familiar problems?
Executive Summary
In this article, Consultant Chris Bassett presents an insurance case study related to commercial trucking fleets, in which he illustrates how understanding the way each person individually interprets a problem is key to assembling an innovation team that can see a challenge both in its parts and as a whole.Below the article, Bassett summarizes takeaways from the case study, providing a How-To guide to help readers design the teams they need to solve their next complex problems. For readers interested in a tear sheet, the takeaways are also published separately in the linked article, "Go to Where the Problem Lives."
Carrier Management previously published an article about how to address the problem of strategic drift that can stall innovation teams, "Reframing Like a Fox: How Insurance Leaders Can Catch Strategic Drift Before It Compounds."
In this article, we explore an insurance case study that illustrates how understanding the way that we individually interpret a problem—shaped by how we perceive our environment—is key to assembling teams that can see a challenge both in its parts and as a whole.
By selectively harnessing diverse perspectives, we can build teams that see very different aspects of a problem, opening up new possibilities for the group to explore.
Research and Hypothesis-Building Only Take You So Far
My colleagues and I had been investigating opportunities in the commercial insurance market, believing we could develop new, technology-supported products. One topic that we returned to repeatedly was small commercial trucking fleets—logistics firms with fewer than 16 cabs that had often grown from owner-operator arrangements into complex businesses that required real management oversight. This category was sizable in the U.S. It was an important part of the distribution supply chain, and it was a complicated risk category.
Our objective was to find a way to take risks that otherwise would have been challenging to underwrite and seek to make them more attractive by increasing risk visibility or by helping fleet owners mitigate risks—or both. We gathered data about the impact of distracted driving, escalating repair costs, nuclear verdicts, increasing liability costs as healthcare technology improved and more. We decided to build a concept around advanced telematics devices— packages that at the time included telematics, high-definition cameras, edge computing and advanced analytics—which we saw as a foundation to offer increased visibility for underwriters, performance data for fleet owners and maybe more services.
