“Show me the incentive, I’ll show you the outcome.”

I was speaking with a qualitative research recruiter at the recent QRCA conference in Denver about the role monetary incentives play in qualitative recruiting. She said, “Look, you have to pay participants so they feel that their time is being valued – they won’t participate otherwise. But that’s not the main reason most of them do it.” She went on to say that people are primarily motivated to participate in qualitative because they think it sounds fun and interesting, and because they genuinely want to help.

This conversation made me think of Charlie Munger – the longtime investor and vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway quoted above – who passed away recently at the tender age of 99. He was a savvy businessman who had a way with words. His famous remark that I quote above about incentives and outcomes is a foundational principle: if you see something as being in your interest, you’re likely to do it, even if it conflicts with your own moral compass.

When I worked in brand management, I marveled at the ability of our salespeople to play the company’s bonus program like a piano. They found no end of ingenious schemes to maximize their bonuses, even if they weren’t actually good for the business. The problem – the company’s performance incentives weren’t aligned with the ultimate desired outcome (bottom line profitability) but with an interim metric (unit volume).

Incentives strongly influence our decisions and actions. They’re one of those powerful tools I was thinking about when I wrote a recent and popular post. They can be instrumental in achieving goals. But, if you’re not careful, they can have disastrous, unintended consequences – like salespeople selling product at a loss to make their bonus target.

One of the reasons we conduct qualitative research is to understand how incentives drive consumer motivations and influence decision-making. It’s important to realize that incentives create biases. So, using qualitative tools to identify and understand incentives and biases can help us to understand opinions and behaviors.

This principle applies to qualitative in another important way. How we interact with research participants – specifically, how we provide affirmation during conversation – can lead to honesty and respectful participation. In other words, if we make participants feel good about themselves for being candid, we’ll incentivize that behavior. If, on the other hand, through body language, tone of voice and facial expressions, we encourage them to tell us what they think we want to hear, that’s probably what they’re going to do.

So, whether you’re a qualitative researcher or not, it pays to be aware of incentives. They can often be the hidden factor driving decisions and actions.

During 2023, I conducted several research studies that involved interviewing participants with serious medical conditions.

Research such as this isn’t easy. Participants can be depressed and distracted, and might be lonely and in pain. They tend to view these interviews, not unreasonably, as an opportunity to unburden themselves to a sympathetic stranger.

These conversations can be emotional and intense. I’ve had participants tell me things they have never said to anybody else. A day of this type of work is tiring, and a week is thoroughly exhausting – with the experience leaving you physically and mentally spent. In fact, if you don’t feel that way after several days of this, you’re probably doing it wrong.

At times like this, it’s easy to focus on the load you’re carrying – serving as an interlocutor between patient and client, as a source of insight to the client, and as a confessor and confidant to the patient. This is a hard set of roles to play, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

However, it’s important to remember that conducting such research is a privilege. A privilege for clients to trust you with their research. A privilege that participants are willing to make themselves vulnerable to you.

The thing is, burden and privilege are two sides of the same coin – you can’t have one without the other. This principle applies to most aspects of our lives. Nursing a loved one through a period of infirmity is both a burden and a privilege. Every civil right enumerated in the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution carries a corresponding responsibility.

Just think about free speech – one of the fundamentals of a free society. You only need to spend a little time on social media to see what happens when this privilege is abused. Participating responsibly on social media platforms can feel onerous, but it’s part of the bargain.

Anytime you shoulder a burden, it means that somebody is trusting and depending upon you. In qualitative research – as in any consultative field – trust is essential to doing your job.  If clients and participants don’t trust you, there isn’t much you can accomplish. So, the ability to earn trust is a key factor that separates experienced, professional practitioners from beginners and amateurs.

So, when facing a burdensome responsibility, ask yourself why you should feel fortunate  – and find the privilege contained within.