I’ve had some interesting conversations with many of you about civility in response to my recent post. One idea that came up a lot was that moral considerations may be the single greatest barrier we face to civil discourse. This is an important matter for qualitative researchers who strive for insightful conversations.

It’s hard to have a civil, respectful dialogue with another person about something on which you completely disagree, particularly if the source of disagreement is a different moral worldview. Understanding someone else’s mindset is hard if it differs significantly from yours, but it gets doubly so when it comes to morality. Morality is our sense of right and wrong. It’s easy for right vs. wrong to morph into good vs. evil. If we disagree, that might suggest that I’m for good and you’re for evil— at which point it’s impossible for us to have a conversation.

Think about some current fraught issues: abortion, guns, covid vaccines. In all these cases, morality is driving opinions and disagreement. And that sorely tests our ability to be civil.

Morality is how we balance the needs of the individual against the needs of the group. Different moral worldviews achieve that balance differently. For instance, while your worldview around one issue might emphasize personal freedom, your views on another might prioritize responsibilities to others.

Another thing that stresses civility is that we often lack the analytical tools and vocabulary to understand fully where another person is coming from. It’s helpful if you can identify the moral framework that informs someone’s POV, and be well versed in the basis of that model, its history, its strengths, and flaws. For more on this, see my post on moral mindsets from about a year ago; it remains one of my most viewed.

Developing a full understanding of a moral mindset that differs profoundly from your own is an act of will and courage. Doing something that might force you to reconsider your own opinion goes against human nature and is emotionally risky. But that’s all in a day’s work for a good qualitative researcher.

Ci·vil·i·ty – formal politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech.

Back in May, I attended a virtual conference held by The Urgency of Civility, an organization dedicated to fostering civility within our world. It was a fascinating and refreshing two days, full of content that was both intellectually stimulating and relevant to these troubled times.

Civility has become a serious matter. We live in a world that is increasingly fraught – both socially and politically. Just having conversations can be nerve-wracking. This has acute implications for qualitative researchers, as conversation is how we make our living. I recently conducted shop-along interviews on a seemingly benign topic: disposable cups and plates. However, when the concept of recyclability came up, some of the conversations became awkward, as both the participant and I were nervous about sharing our views. Recyclability and sustainability have become highly politicized and polarized issues. I worked through this challenge, but things could have gone badly, and tiptoeing around this issue cost valuable time and dampened the mood.

One idea that has become clear to me is that civility is a skill—one that can be gained and built, and one that can wither and be lost. We can learn to be civil, we can get better at it over time, and, in so doing, can teach others to do so as well. Doing so requires acquiring a few habits and tools:

Resisting the desire to judge and moralize—moral posturing is conversational poison. We tend to look for moral explanations for our differences. This is simplistic and unproductive.

Courage—A Vietnam veteran I once knew used to say, “war is easy; peace is hard.” Having a civil conversation when you’d prefer either confrontation or avoidance isn’t easy. It requires you to be both vulnerable and open to new ideas. Remember: civility doesn’t mean misrepresenting your views in order to avoid conflict.

Resisting competitive instincts— human beings often tend to be reflexively contentious. This is an evolved trait that, unfortunately, is unlikely to foster civility. Resist allowing a conversation to devolve into a competition that must be won.

Introspection—civility often requires us to ask ourselves what’s preventing us from engaging in civil discourse on a specific topic or with a specific individual. This isn’t always easy, but it is essential to having a civil, productive conversation.

Compassion and empathy— one key to civility is understanding where incivility might be coming from. Deliberate incivility may be a result of feelings of powerlessness or fear, or of a sense of being disregarded or disrespected.

Understanding opposing viewpoints— John Stuart Mill once wrote, “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.” Taking a genuine interest in how others have come to see things the way they do is a habit very much worth developing, as it can lead to some fascinating conversations. It also unequivocally demonstrates respect, which goes a long way.

Commitment—it’s essential to be dedicated to fostering civility, and to be willing to set an example. This isn’t always easy. Not only does civility seem to be on the wane, but aggressive incivility seems to be increasingly common. Sadly, making a point of being civil may open you to ridicule.

It’s also good to have some conversational tools and techniques in your back pocket. Having a civil exchange can be much easier if you have a set of questions at the ready when things get dicey. Here are a few I use regularly:

“How did you come to have that point of view?

“What are some experiences you’ve had that have informed your opinion?”

“What are some things that people who disagree with you don’t understand?”

This list is certainly not exhaustive.  I’d love to know your thoughts on civility and how to be civil.

As qualitative researchers, we have a unique opportunity to set an example for others. We spend so much of our time engaged in conversation with all kinds of people, and our profession demands that we create an environment for the free exchange of ideas and opinions. In doing so, we should view ourselves as modeling key principles of civil discourse.

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of research that involves new product concepts, web pages, packaging mockups and other types of stimuli. As a researcher, I’ve always been willing to provide feedback to clients on the stimuli they create, and they’re generally receptive to my suggestions. With that in mind, here are two immutable market research principles that we should all keep in mind when creating research stimuli.

1 – Research participants can only respond to something that’s in front of them. It’s difficult for most people to form an opinion on something entirely hypothetical. If you need to understand what flavors consumers might be interested in for your sports drink, don’t expect them to tell you; they’re going to need a list. If you want to know what menu options users would like on your web page, your mockup needs an example for them to react to. And if you want to know how much they might be willing to pay for that sports drink, your concept will need to include some pricing information—there’s no sense in asking ‘how much would you pay?’ In other words, people can’t generally tell you what they want—you need to show them something you think they might want and see if they agree.

2 – Research participants cannot help but respond to everything that’s in front of them. Reactions to a stimulus will be shaped by the entirety of that stimulus. And there isn’t any way to tease apart the elements that drove that reaction—you can’t unscramble an egg. So, if you don’t want to talk about price, don’t include one in your concept. If you’re not interested in discussing a new brand logo, don’t include it on your web page wireframe. In other words, stimuli must focus tightly on research objectives, and not include any extraneous information. The more your stimulus contains, the more likely it is that respondents will be distracted by issues that aren’t relevant. Also, don’t include more information in your stimulus than could realistically be found in real-world marketing executions. If there’s only room for one claim on your package, don’t put five in your concept.

Remember – a stimulus is just another way to ask a question. As with every question asked in qualitative research, it should be focused on your research objectives and must contain the right amount of detail.

We’ve all been in that uncomfortable situation that comes up periodically during qualitative research – DEAD SILENCE.

The conversation just stalls, and you have no idea what to ask next. So, what to do?  Here are a few solutions that will help to break the ice and get things jump-started.

First, Don’t Panic. This is an opportunity to reset the conversation and steer things in a new, perhaps unexpected, direction. If you don’t want to do that, go to the next topic. Unless you’ve covered every topic in your guide – including those ‘time-permitting ones’ – there should be more to discuss. So just move on.

Don’t Fear the Pause. This is hard, but silence can often be beneficial. Participants may feel a need to say something, and that could lead to an unexpected insight.

Take The Pause Head-On.  Say something like … “uh-oh – why has the room just gone quiet?”

Make The Topic of Conversation the Conversation Itself.  It’s okay to encourage a bit of introspection to get things rolling again.  You can ask:

“How is this conversation making you feel?”

“Has anything said in this conversation surprised you?”

“Have your thoughts and feelings about this topic changed in the course of this conversation?”

“Is there something we’re not talking about here that we should?”

“Is there something unsaid lurking beneath the surface of this conversation?”

Have A Few ‘Back Pocket’ Questions. Be prepared for that sudden lull. It’s a good idea to have some ‘questions for all occasions’ to ask if you’re stuck. I recently heard Stephen Colbert call this the – ‘In case of emergency, break glass, remove question’ question. Here are mine:

“What do I not seem to understand about this topic?”

“What don’t people understand about this topic?”

“Who do you think this product/brand/category is for?”

“You used the term ______ a minute ago.  What did you mean by that?”

So, don’t fear awkward silence.  It happens naturally during many conversations. Use it to your advantage and possibly to gain insights you never anticipated. Awkward silence can be your friend – if you’ll let it.

My thanks to master moderators Michelle Ogren Jeffrys and Pam Goldfarb Liss for their input on this topic.

Trial and error are often the path to success.

Sometimes you just have to try something and learn as you go. A few years ago, I conducted research on concepts for a new healthcare-related service. Most of these ideas were quite well developed. However, while we were designing the research, the client mentioned one idea they had that was so ‘out there’ that they didn’t quite know how to describe it. In fact, they even struggled when discussing it amongst themselves. That being the case, the client felt we should hold off on testing this idea.

I pushed back a little, pointing out that squeezing in one more concept would not be a big deal. I said, “look— just write something up. It doesn’t matter how bad it is. We’ll show it in the first group, see what people say, adjust accordingly, and then show it again to the next group. By the time we get to the end of the research, maybe we’ll have something.”

The reaction to the concept in the first group was primarily confusion. But, after some discussion, the participants began to understand the idea and made suggestions as to how to better describe it. We took this feedback, edited the concept, and showed a revised one in the second group where it did a little better.

As the research went on, we continued to adjust. By the final group the participants understood the idea fairly well, but still didn’t quite know what they thought about it. Afterwards, the client felt they had a much better understanding of what their idea was, and what they needed to do internally to continue to develop it. About a year later we showed fully developed descriptions which performed very well among individuals in certain consumer segments.

Just taking your best shot and adjusting along the way can be nerve-wracking, but it’s also effective— iteration is often our greatest teacher. We live in a staggeringly intricate world, and many systems and situations are so complex that they simply can’t be intuitively understood. It’s naïve to think you can design a perfect approach up front. Don’t’ fall into the trap of thinking that knowledge and experience alone will lead you to an optimal solution. This principle applies to all aspects of our lives, and certainly to marketing and market research.

Here are some examples of how a trial-and-error approach can be used in marketing and market research:

• Some of my clients routinely optimize marketing tactics like service bundles, promotions and banner ads by introducing something in a limited geography or for a very short period. They see how it perform, tinker with it a bit, and then broadly introduce the optimized tactic.

• When I write a discussion guide, I make a point of including multiple possible ways to ask questions, and several back-pocket exercises to be used if the primary exercises don’t work as hoped. It’s not realistic to think that everything I put into the guide is going to elicit the desired information, and it’s important to be ready to turn on a dime.

• When screening research participants, give yourself plenty of time for recruiting. It’s likely you’ll learn some things during the first few days of screening that will make you realize you need to make some changes to either the research specifications or the questionnaire.

• When designing research, consider breaking it into multiple phases. Depending on your objectives it might be valuable to have time to step back, think, adjust and do some more research. A phased approach can allow that.

I’ll leave you with one final thought. To learn from trial and error, you need to be willing to fail. So, it’s important to manage expectations. Also, remember to not let yourself get too discouraged when your first try at something goes very badly. Remind yourself that it’s all part of the process. Early failures are the price of ultimate success.