What Competitive Intelligence Professionals Can Take From Watching Killing Eve?
What Competitive Intelligence professionals can take from watching Killing Eve?
We are fans of Killing Eve. Right from episode one, it oozes humour mixed with vicious psychopathic killing. It’s not every day you’ll see the following headline. What Competitive Intelligence professionals can take from watching Killing Eve? Headlines usually are about how battle cards or access to a portal will change your life.
For those who don’t know, Killing Eve is a departure from the typical crime drama. The show centres on an MI5 officer, Eve and an assassin, Villanelle, as they chase each other across Europe. The show is sprinkled with humour, making it an excellent watch for anyone looking for a laugh. However, it’s a dark and violent world beneath the comedy, where people are killed for fun. But what’s it got to do with researching your competitor or Competitive Intelligence?
Watching Killing Eve gives us insights
Watching Killing Eve gives us insights into the daily world of Competitive Intelligence. No, not really. But when the Wifi drops out, it could be like that. 🙂 However, it shows us the importance of being able to think outside the box. If there is a box, of course, be creative when it comes to investigations.
What is Competitive Intelligence?
Competitive Intelligence is the finding, sorting and critical analysis of information. To make sense of what’s happening and why. Predict what’s going to happen and give the options to help you control the outcome. Competitive Intelligence offers more certainty, competitive advantage, insight, growth & security.
The show has also enlightened us on the importance of teamwork and how crucial it is to have a good support system. Being determined and hardworking are essential to being a successful Competitive Intelligence professional. But the learning is mainly about a fantastic laugh!
Villanelle is working for an organisation called “The Twelve”, and she is controlled to a point by a former (or is he?) KGB operator called Konstantin Vasiliev. He is our favourite character and comes with a fantastic laugh. A loud and short laugh is usually used in inappropriate situations.
You may wonder why Killing Eve has anything to do with Competitive Intelligence. Or even competitive analysis or researching your competitors. After all, Competitive Intelligence is not spying or stealing secrets. Or doing anything naughty like killing your competitor’s CTO.
Competitive Intelligence has nothing to do with stealing secrets
In fact, Competitive Intelligence has nothing to do with stealing secrets at all. Secret stealing is left to national intelligence services. And even then, they focus much of the time looking in the same places you could research too. It’s the answers that are important, not how secret it is. We can find the information your CEO wouldn’t be comfortable with a competitor knowing. But it’s all open-source, above board and legal.
Konstantin’s laugh
So back to the subject. Competitive Intelligence and Konstantin’s laugh in Killing Eve. It’s intriguing. Yes, Konstantin laughs at funny situations. But it’s also an excellent tool when he’s in tricky spots.
When he is being threatened or Villanelle has done something crazy. He will do his laugh. Or when he is meeting someone, the laughter will come out of him at an unexpected time.
It’s an elicitation technic of sorts. Or an anti elicitation technique. He does this for several reasons:
- To cause a distraction so he can react
- Change the subject
- To give him time to think about the situation he is in
- To break the flow of a conversation and move it towards what he wants to talk about
- As a stress relief
- And that despite what he does, he is a funny guy
Many digital marketing entrepreneurs do it by swearing a lot. Swearing breaks the pattern and gets people to listen to them. It’s unexpected and not what you are used to in a business situation. If used too much, the effect is destroyed.
What Competitive Intelligence professionals can take from watching Killing Eve?
In conclusion to our unusual subject, here are the four takeaways. What Competitive Intelligence professionals can take away from watching Killing Eve?
- It’s important to have a sense of humour and keep a positive attitude. Not take yourself too seriously no matter how long you have done Intelligence for. Even in the face of endless hours on the phone or browsing web pages, keep positive.
- Be creative in problem-solving.
- It’s essential to be aware of your surroundings and always be prepared for the unexpected.
- Have a distractor to get an interview back on track or break someone else’s thought patterns.
