Assume I know nothing

The qualitative research technique that should be more widely used

In a previous life, I used to facilitate qualitative research projects: focus groups, depth interviews, accompanied shops, ethnography…. that sort of thing.

In fact, I worked out recently that over a 10-year period, I personally ran well over 1,000 separate sessions - that’s a lot of people to get to know and masses of topics to get my head around.

Everything from Annuities to Zoos (yes, really)

But despite the diversity of these projects, they had one thing in common – the people I was talking to were all recruited as ‘experts’ in that particular topic.

Regardless of whether I was talking to a CEO or a main grocery buyer, a tradesman or a media planner, the reason they were there was because they all knew more about their subject than I did and my job was to learn from them.

Sure, on some occasions I may have begun the project with a good understanding of the topic myself, but that was not important. My role was to remain open minded, to listen, to question, to challenge and, above all, to understand.

One technique I found useful on numerous occasions here was to play the ingenue and ask people to explain things to me as simply as they could.

What I soon discovered is that when asked, people like to impart their (superior) knowledge … and the less they think you know, the more they like to bridge that gap.

But what was interesting during that process was how often a little gentle probing would uncover inconsistencies in their views, helping them to clarify (or sometimes even re-evaluate) their position.

However, if I had given off the air of knowing everything about ‘their’ subject from the outset, they would have been less likely to open up as much and we wouldn’t have reached a deeper level of understanding and insight. This was proven, time after time.

So, why am I mentioning this here?

Well, I think that this approach has a wider application beyond the rarefied air of a research project.

On many occasions in the past, I have sat in meetings where my knowledge of a particular topic was, let’s say, ‘incomplete’. But, looking around the table, I reckon I wasn’t alone in that respect.

Faced with that situation, most people seem to resort to one of two time-worn strategies.

Either keep quiet and try to pick things up during the meeting, or else enter the debate with gusto and use a combination of bluster, management-speak generalities and jargon that are unlikely to expose one's lack of a deeper understanding of the topic.

In truth, neither option is ideal..... but maybe there is another way.

What if you were to adopt the techniques of the qualitative researcher and treat the meeting as a golden opportunity to increase your own (and maybe the group’s) learning whilst also challenging other people’s previously entrenched views?

Now, I accept this approach may not be for everyone. After all, it requires a level of self-confidence and even courage to admit you don’t know everything about a subject.

Indeed, asking such questions may prove somewhat uncomfortable, both for you and maybe for the person providing the answers, especially if their perceived expertise is shown up to be less than absolute.

And of course, there will be situations where starting a meeting off with “I know very little about this” may be a little too bold, but never fear, there are other, more subtle ways to apply the spirit of the researcher’s approach.

• How about adapting some of these questions for instance:
• How might our typical customer describe this?
• What would our ‘elevator pitch’ for this sound like?
• If we had to describe the problem to our CEO in a 2-line email, what would we say?
• If we had to strip out the marketing language, what are we really saying here?
• I want to test my assumptions here, how would you sell it to me?
• If I had to tell my mum about this, what is the simplest way I could do so?
• If we had to write a press release for this, what would our headline be?

Sure, you can probably get away without doing any of this in the corporate world, but unfortunately there are no such luxuries in the field of qualitative research – after all, getting to the heart of the matter is why you are being employed.

Without gaining a true understanding of a subject, there can be no new insight; without new insight there can be no major steps forward; and if there are no major steps forward possible, then what is the point?

So, the next time you find yourself sitting in a meeting thinking “I’m not sure I fully understand this”, why not take a deep breath, channel your inner researcher and just ask someone to explain?

You may well find the outcome both illuminating and liberating.