Written by Jonathan Dunnett
5 minute read
In brief: Most people don’t realize that information isn’t intelligence. They gather a fact, form a judgment, and move on. The Pyramid of Understanding is a framework developed by competitive intelligence strategist Jonathan Dunnett that helps professionals develop deeper, more accurate insight into the people and organizations they work with. It moves you from raw data through layers of context toward actionable intelligence: the kind that informs decisions, reduces risk, and compounds over time. Read on to learn more.
We have more information than ever, and it’s getting harder to make sense of it
We have more information being created than ever. And somehow, it keeps getting harder to make sense of the people around us.
This is a function of how information overload actually works, and what it does to our judgment.
For the last 18 years, I’ve worked to understand people and organizations in the context of the strategic moves they’re making. That work sits at the intersection of competitive intelligence, behavioral profiling, and speaker business development strategy. And somewhere around 2020, as Netflix was releasing wave after wave of documentaries about fraudsters and con artists, something clicked for me.
The people who got burned weren’t unsophisticated. They weren’t naive. They just didn’t have a systematic way to think about what they were learning. They had information. They didn’t have intelligence. I built the Pyramid of Understanding because I wanted people to think better about others in their lives, without needing to be an intelligence analyst to do it. This post is the first in a series that unpacks how it works.
Your brain is the first obstacle
The first problem with information overload isn’t the volume: it’s what the volume does to your psychology.
When you’re presented with a litany of information (especially conflicting information), it can overwhelm your brain and send you looking for the simplest answer. Or, if you’re not exercising metacognition (thinking about your thinking), you default toward an existing bias: confirmation bias. You set out looking for a specific piece of information, you saw one signal, and you deemed it true because it was exactly what you expected to find. That’s understandable and it’s also problematic.
Especially when it comes to understanding others.
The irony is that having access to more information can make us lazier, not sharper. We reach for the first signal that confirms what we already suspected and stop there. That’s a problem when the stakes are low. It’s a serious problem when they aren’t.
A snapshot isn’t a portrait
Here’s the second issue: the temporal nature of human behavior. We’ve all had a bad day, yes? Maybe you had one this week.
Unfortunately, people don’t always get the best from us, and our interactions can be significantly tainted by how we showed up in that moment (that applies to others, too!). Think about the latest celebrity scandal. Why is it a scandal? Because it’s often about catching someone on one of their worst days, and people making sweeping judgments based on that single moment.
We can miss a lot when we don’t take a long enough temporal view of the person we’re trying to understand.
I remember someone telling me about a meeting where, within 10 minutes, they had judged the other person as a complete jerk. I asked a few questions. In his case, it was how he felt at the time, not who that person actually was. I had a call a while back with another person: the abrasive nature that they had, combined with their lack of reply to friendly follow-ups? It was telling…
Quick judgments are understandable: whether they’re useful depends entirely on what you’re trying to accomplish.
If you’re buying ice cream, you want to know about sanitation (wash your hands, please!), flavors, and whether you’ll get your cone in a timely and pleasant manner. If you’re signing a long-term speaking and training contract, you want a better understanding of how that organization is going to interact with you and treat you over time. Just because something is written one way on paper doesn’t mean the reality is always pleasant. If you’ve been around the block long enough, you know exactly what I mean.
Building a better picture: where information actually comes from
So beyond getting little tidbits about someone, how do you get a better level of understanding?
Time. The more time you have with someone, the better you can see their character. Of course, there are caveats: Bernie Madoff and Melissa Caddick were both known to be charming and persuasive over years, even decades, and both turned out to be massive fraudsters. Time helps, but it isn’t a guarantee. You’re using information to help inform decisions and manage risk: always keep that in the forefront of your mind.
Asking others, carefully. Who you approach, how you frame it, and the relationship you have all matter. Done poorly, it can go very wrong: if someone finds out you were having conversations about them, they may not take it as a compliment. Think carefully before you pick up that phone.
Open sources. Large language models, traditional search, newspapers, even obituaries. Some people are very private, but in my experience there’s always at least one person who overshares, especially on social media: that can be useful (ask me how I know!). With all of these, we always want to think about validating information: is there a weird outlier? It might be true… it might not be. We want more than one source (that is not connected and is independent) to corroborate those insights.
This applies whether you’re profiling a potential client, vetting an event organizer, assessing a long-term vendor, or considering a business partner. The sources are the same. What changes is the depth of scrutiny you apply, and that should always match the level of exposure you’re taking on.
The decision is the point
Here’s the thing about all of this: information gathering isn’t an end in itself. Every piece of information you’re collecting exists to serve a decision you need to make and the risks that come with it.
When you’re trying to understand someone, think about where you can get information and from whom, what that information could mean, and how it fits the decision in front of you.
In recent years there have been speaker communities where people invested serious money and energy, and lost it all because of the actions of particular individuals. That doesn’t mean you’re going to run up against fraud every day. But you do need to be careful about how you invest your resources and how you think about others.
The ice cream? You can walk away from it… the wrong contract that you’ve just signed with the wrong people? That’s a tougher cone to swallow.
Information isn’t intelligence: here’s the difference
Information is just that: it’s information. When we start to stack it together and contextualize it in the decisions and the things that we’re seeking to understand, now we’re starting to develop it into something useful. Intelligence that becomes actionable.
That’s the foundation of the Pyramid of Understanding: a framework for moving from scattered facts toward the kind of deep, structured insight that actually changes how you make decisions. The next post in this series goes deeper into how context builds over time, and why most people miss it entirely.
Want to apply this to your speaking business?
There are three ways we can work on this together.
The Speaker Growth Roadmap is where we apply this methodology directly to your business development strategy over six weeks. It starts with a research phase that puts this framework to work on your market, your clients, and your positioning.
A market intelligence coaching session is a focused, one-time engagement for speakers who want to build a clearer picture of a specific client, organizer, or market they’re trying to enter.
If you’re looking for ongoing strategic support, the Fractional Speaker Growth Partner engagement is built for speakers who want this kind of thinking working for them month over month.
Not sure where to start? Explore how we work together.
Jonathan Dunnett helps keynote speakers get booked on purpose. He is a Council of Competitive Intelligence Fellow and brings systematic, intelligence-driven frameworks to speaker business development. Serendipity isn’t a strategy.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Pyramid of Understanding?
The Pyramid of Understanding is a framework developed by Jonathan Dunnett that helps professionals move from raw information toward actionable intelligence. It structures how you gather, layer, and contextualize what you learn about the people and organizations you work with, so that your insights serve the decisions you actually need to make. It was developed out of 18+ years of applied competitive intelligence and behavioral profiling work.
What is the difference between information and intelligence?
Information is raw data: a fact, a signal, an observation. Intelligence is what happens when you stack information together, validate it across independent sources, and contextualize it in the decisions you’re trying to make. Most people stop at information. Intelligence is what becomes actionable.
How can keynote speakers use competitive intelligence in their business development?
Keynote speakers can apply competitive intelligence methodology to vet clients and event organizers, understand the markets they’re trying to enter, assess risks before signing contracts, and build a more strategic approach to relationship development. The Pyramid of Understanding gives speakers a structured way to do this without needing a background in intelligence analysis.
What is confirmation bias and why does it matter when understanding others?
Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out and accept information that confirms what you already believe, while discounting information that contradicts it. When you’re trying to understand a person or organization, confirmation bias can lead you to stop gathering information too early and draw conclusions based on a single signal. One antidote is metacognition: thinking about your thinking, and asking whether you’re building a real picture or just confirming an existing one.
How do you build a more accurate picture of someone you’re considering working with?
Three approaches tend to be most useful: time (the more interactions you have, the more you see of someone’s actual character), asking others carefully (with attention to who you approach and how), and open sources (search, social media, news, and other publicly available information). Across all three, the key discipline is validation: look for independent, corroborating sources before drawing conclusions, and treat outliers as questions rather than answers.
Is this framework only useful for speakers?
No. The Pyramid of Understanding applies to anyone who needs to make better decisions about the people and organizations they work with: vendors, partners, clients, suppliers. The speaker business development context is where Jonathan applies it most directly, but the underlying methodology comes from competitive intelligence practice and works across industries.