This week’s Meeting of the Minds sees Alex Vishney and Melissa Gilson from 5D reveal their leadership heroes, current streaming binge, and career goals.
The Mediaweek series showcases diverse perspectives, thoughts and opinions by bringing together two different points of view from an industry rookie and an experienced expert.
Alex Vishney, Managing Director, Sydney, 5D
Favourite podcast/read: Currently Josh Szeps’ Uncomfortable Conversations.
Current streaming binge: Severance on Apple TV. For those who don’t know, it’s about dividing a person’s mind between a work persona and home persona and the two are completely oblivious to each other… which sounds quite appealing at first! But it then develops some interesting moral considerations.
Misconception about your role: That research is asking consumers what they think. In fact, humans are pretty bad at understanding what drives us, why we do things, and what we will do in the future.
So, to do my role well, you need a lot of experience in how to derive this sort of insight without relying on simply directly asking.
Best career advice: Always think two steps ahead.
Leadership hero: Warren Buffett. I’m an introvert and gravitate to similar personas. He has qualities that don’t tend to get mentioned nowadays in discussions about leadership: patience and consideration, rigor and fact-based decision making, substance over glitter, long-term value over short-term gains.
But when he decides to back something, he goes all in and doesn’t look back. He’s also a great storyteller and communicator.
How do you stay motivated: Zoom out a bit, look at the bigger picture, and remember I’m working with great people, helping businesses evolve and grow, and solving puzzles every day. Thankfully my job is quite varied and there’s always something interesting going on.
Best training course/session: Oxford Executive Leadership Program.
I wish someone had told me: To put more into my super in my 20s (well to be fair, lots of people did tell me that…)
Something that’s surprised you about the industry: The diversity of skills and capabilities needed to succeed. Specialist knowledge is just the beginning.
There’s research methods, marketing, strategy, psychology, statistics, etc. Then there’s a host of soft skills that take years to fine tune like communication, storytelling, presentation, consulting, business management, leadership, and it goes on.
What is your hot take on the industry: At its best, this industry lights the way forward for clients. But there is also a lot of mythology out there, with little basis in reality. The shift to science-based approaches has been happening but will accelerate in the coming years.
Favourite way to switch off from work: Central Otago Pinot Noir
Career goal for 2025: Learn something new each week.
Melissa Gilson, Director, Consumer and Brand Strategy, 5D
Favourite podcast/read: I literally could not be more of a cliché in that I love a good true crime podcast (as every self-respecting 40 something female does). Gilbert King’s Bone Valley remains my unbeatable favourite.
I also love a good memoir by “misbehaving” women. Loved and devoured The Many Lives of Mama Love, The Erratics and Educated – all so different, but equally entertaining.
I would read anything by Helen Garner. Anything. The woman could release a shopping list, and I’d devour it. She’s a genius.
Current streaming binge: MobLand is hard to beat. Directed by Guy Ritchie, starring Pierce Brosnan, a diabolical Helen Mirren, and Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy as a moody, mobland “fixer”, does it get better than this? Well, yes, watching Tom Hardy read bedtime stories with his bulldog is, *gulp*, good too.
Also loved Slow Horses, and very excited that another season is about to drop. Gary Oldman as a damaged, drunk, farting spy is just so, so good.
Misconception about your role: That anyone can do it! If I had a dollar for every person who casually scoffed, “pfft, I could run a focus group!”, well, I wouldn’t still be running focus groups!
Qualitative moderators are the ultimate multiskilled masters. This role requires so many skillsets, from the ability to make people feel immediately comfortable, to knowing when to ask a question, and when to remain quiet.
We must story-tell, explore, interrogate, double back, cross check, placate, encourage and gently pull a gaggle of voices back on course – all while being streamed online and observed through glass!
We are part psychologists, confidantes and nosey parkers. We often have one hour over cold pizza to find the answer. Easy, right?
The other misconception is that our role is simply to report what we hear. Lots of (shit) research certainly follows this premise, but true strategists look for meaning. We are more interested in the why than the what. The unsaid versus the verbalised. We have perfected the lost art of listening.
And that’s much more difficult to extract. It’s such a great job.
Best career advice: Find a great mentor but develop your own style. I’ve been blessed with so many amazing mentors, with such varying styles. It’s easy to want to replicate someone you admire, but it never feels quite right. Find what you are good at and play to that strength.
Leadership hero: I am loving the vocal horde of women’s health advocates who seem to be breaking through right now, on social media and beyond. They are giving voice to topics like endometriosis and menopause that have long been under the radar and under resourced for so long.
They are inspirational and working hard to reverse decades of damaging misinformation and neglect. They are making a difference to my life and my daughter’s life and giving a voice to my mother’s generation, who were gaslit and completely fucked over.
Unfortunately, however, it’s so much easier to point out terrible leaders than good ones right now.
How do you stay motivated: Through positive reinforcement. I like a good, sweet treat, expensive handbags, or five-star hotels! I am definitely more carrot than stick.
Honestly, I really enjoy what I do. Each new brief is an opportunity to dig in, find meaning and tell a story. It’s never boring, always challenging, and I work with awesome people. That’s motivation enough.
Oh, and the applause. I live for the applause.
Best training course/session: I’ve been working with my AI team to develop and refine qualitative research analysis frameworks over the past few months. It’s been incredibly enjoyable, I’ve learned so much, and I may be starting to earn my “AI Expert” nickname.
I wish someone had told me: To spend my drinking money in my 20s,on Sydney property.
That you need to be your biggest advocate. I read somewhere that we often talk to ourselves in a way we’d never speak to others. We can be so self-critical and mean. As I get older, I’m much kinder to myself, but I wish I’d learned earlier to be my biggest cheerleader.
Something that’s surprised you about the industry: Nothing, for a very long time! Then AI burst onto the scene and I’m more excited by my industry than I have been for some time.
The collaboration of human curiosity, critical thinking and machine learning is incredible, and it is changing the way I work, daily. It’s very exciting.
What is your hot take on the industry: Well, I’m constantly bemused and confused by these AI qualitative research tools that claim to get to the heart of what matters to people via “deep” conversations. My hot take is that we will continue to evolve AI and utilise it as the invaluable, exciting analytical tool it is, but it will never replace human to human conversations, immersion or observation when it comes to understanding, well, humans.
Favourite way to switch off from work: See above. True Crime, misbehaving women, Tom Hardy and red wine.
Career goal for 2025: To keep enjoying what I’m doing and to maintain this wonderful balance in my life. I’m having a pretty good time right now, so more of the same thanks.
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Past editions of Meeting of the Minds.
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Top image: Alex Vishney and Melissa Gilson