Research tells us what is, but to stimulate leaders to change their perceptions, we have to help them think about what might be. Researchers have to stop thinking of themselves as knowledge providers and start thinking as knowledge workers. It is only data that is turned into intelligence that can facilitate wisdom. Researchers have to interpret and visualise information in ways which present the incongruities, dissonance or contradictions. We are going to have to change what we do.
Relationships are also important.
Outsiders are seen as a threat, but a colleague has permission to push the incongruities, to challenge the status quo. Survey information without regard to disciplinary boundaries or existing plausibility structures. Relate the unrelatable, think in different frameworks, use the right side of the brain. Identify rather than ignore the incongruities, so that the difference is shown between what is and what people either assume is true or wish was true. Keep alive the tension between what is and what could be.