You learn what you love.

I once heard a statistician observe that the most important teacher in his life wasn’t the one who taught him the most math, but the one who taught him to love math. This made me realize that, if you want to teach people something in a way that will stick, teach them to love it. Most important skills aren’t taught to us. Rather, we self-teach them. Take riding a bicycle. Nobody really teaches you this, they just put you in a position to work it out on your own.

This certainly applies to my field of qualitative research. I can’t teach you how to do what I do. Sure, I can explain basic principles and skills. I can also show you how I do certain things, and I can describe how others do them. But ultimately, this is something you figure out for yourself, and that takes time and effort. If you truly love something, you’ll be willing to invest the years (or even decades) of work required to master it, and you’ll be able to weather the disappointments and failures you will inevitably encounter along the way.

So, this brings up two important questions:

1. How do you learn to love something?
2. How to you teach somebody to love something?

I’ve found there are two keys to learning to love something:

Begin with curiosity. If you’re eager to know about something, that’s a great place to start. But beware letting curiosity morph into pressure. That probably won’t help you learn to love something.

Take it slowly and give it time. Love at first sight might be common in movies, but it’s rare in real life. Allow your enthusiasm for something to grow and evolve over time. Sometimes love is a thing that builds inside of us, not something we find.

As for how to teach somebody else to love something, in addition to the above principles, there are a couple more things to remember:

Start with why, not how. Share your reasons for loving something, and don’t be shy about modeling your feelings and practices.

Let them struggle. Allow them to work through their suffering by themselves. Sometimes, we learn to love something after we’ve wrestled with it and made it our own. This goes back to the idea that most important skills are self-taught. So, don’t think of yourself as a teacher, but as a guide.

As St. Thomas Aquinas, the 13th century Dominican priest and philosopher, once wrote, “The things that we love tell us what we are.” Learning to love something yourself, and teaching others to love things as well, are valuable skills that will teach you a lot about you. Because, when you come to love something, it becomes a part of you.

You can’t change the past.

I sometimes joke with my wife about how great it is that so many devices and apps have a mute button, and wouldn’t it be nice if certain people had that button. She generally responds that, if I’d like to marry my smartphone, I should feel free to do so. I also make extensive use of the undo function in the apps I work with, and have often wished life had that feature as well.

But it doesn’t. Newsflash – we can’t change the past, much as we would like to. As a qualitative researcher, I have often found the ‘time machine question’ to be useful. Asking participants what they would do if they could turn back time brings up all sorts of interesting topics: decision-making, regrets, fears and hopes to name a few. But, while it’s worthwhile to dwell on these questions in the context of qualitative research, it’s not a great way to live your life.

Thinking about the past is entirely human. It can be productive, particularly if your intention is to learn and improve. (A couple of years ago I wrote a post on learning from past mistakes.) It’s no accident that so much popular culture centers around the theme of time travel and changing the past. Just ask Marty McFly.

But, when rehashing the past, it’s easy to lapse into regret and recrimination. Psychotherapists understand that discussing regrets and past mistakes with patients can be risky, with the possibility of ‘retraumatizing’ patients if the memories being discussed are particularly distressing. This is why the ancient stoic philosophers exhorted their followers to let go of their disappointments and focus on the present.

So, what are some keys to looking at the past productively?

Own your failures, maybe even celebrate them. I’ve always believed that, if you never experience failure, you’re not trying hard enough.

Don’t conflate decisions with outcomes. Remember that a good decision doesn’t guarantee a good result. What’s more, sometimes you get lucky and a bad decision works out anyway. If you took a smart risk, give yourself credit for that, regardless of the results.

Be honest about what could, and could not, have been foreseen. We must expect the unexpected. Think about contingency planning – did you make sufficient allowances for the unpredictable?

Focus on what you can learn, rather than how you messed up. The point of looking back is to learn and grow, not to beat yourself up.

Know when it’s time to stop analyzing and move on. There comes a point when reflection must give way to action.

I’m not saying that any of this is easy, but it is possible. And the more you do this, the better you’ll get at it.

When you continually rehash, or even obsess over, the past, you’re not doing anything productive, you’re just wasting time and imprisoning yourself in a cycle of regret and self-blame. So, make peace with the past. Make peace with your mistakes. They have made you who and what you are today.

Happy New Year to all! I’m guessing that many of you have made some New Year’s resolutions.

As for me, I have resolved for the new year to focus, to the greatest extent possible, on things I can actually control. I also plan to devote as little attention as I can to things that are beyond my control. This is hardly a new idea – the principle goes back at least as far as ancient Greece. As the stoic philosopher Epictetus once wrote, “Some things are up to us, and some things are not.” He also pointed out that trying to control the uncontrollable is inconsistent with living in harmony alongside nature.

While focusing on what you can control sounds great, it’s more easily said than done. But I’m going to give it my best shot. This resolution has gotten me thinking about what is truly within my control, and I’ve come to realize that this is more complicated than I had originally thought.

For one thing, in my field of qualitative research, it’s well accepted that it is unwise to exert too much control over research conversations and interviews. Only by ceding control can we allow conversations to go in unexpected directions and yield creativity and insight that would otherwise be inaccessible. So, even if you can control something, maybe you shouldn’t.

There are also implications for marketing strategy. For instance, you can’t control how consumers behave and perceive your brand. However, you usually can control the brand experience, which can provide some indirect control over behaviors and perceptions. This illustrates the principle elucidated by the Roman philosopher Seneca that, while we can control our own actions and decisions, we generally can’t control outcomes.

So, what makes the question of what you can control so complex? Here are some factors that I think contribute to this:

• Control is not a binary thing; it’s one end of a continuum (the other end being chaos). While some elements of a situation are clearly controllable, and others clearly aren’t, many fall into a gray area. You might not be able to ‘control’ something, but you can influence it. This is particularly true in collaborative situations, when success depends on both individual and collective effort.

• Overly stressing control can hinder creativity. Making a situation too controlled makes it less likely that the unexpected will happen. Remember – the world is a beautifully messy place; my last newsletter touches on the idea of embracing the uncontrollable.

• Emotions can get in the way – ceding control might not feel good.

• So can moral values – giving up control might even feel wrong.

Let’s return to my New Year’s resolution. While there are countless ‘controllable’ things to choose from, I’ve decided to focus on just three in 2025:

• How much time I devote to the people I care about.

• My willingness to change my opinion about something.

• How much effort I make to discover new ideas and build new skills.

What are your new year’s resolutions? Do you even have any? Does this whole ‘control’ thing figure into them? Please email me back and let me know. I’d love to know your hopes and intentions for 2025.

So, did you enjoy the recent election and the campaign that preceded it? I know I did (not!).

But I can’t deny it was interesting. If nothing else, we got to see decision making in all its pathological glory.
As a qualitative researcher, a lot of my work involves decision making. Clients often need to understand how people choose among alternatives. For instance, understanding how taxpayers choose among tax prep approaches can help a provider of tax tools design an appropriate range of service offerings.

So, I know a thing or two about decision making. One thing I know is how messy it can be.

Decision making is thought of as a process of choosing among options based on analysis and reasoning. Occasionally, that’s actually what it is. It would be nice to think that we consider all available information and make rational judgements. However, it’s usually the other way around.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s research shows that people tend to form beliefs and make decisions quickly and impulsively, frequently based on intuitive moral judgments. Afterwards, they back into a rationalization. This seems to be particularly the case when it comes to politics, which has become little more than a public morality play.

During political campaigns, voters of all persuasions form quick impressions of candidates and issues based on moral considerations – their intuitive sense of right and wrong – and vote accordingly. Questions to these voters about their decisions receive rational, after-the-fact explanations. But these justifications are unreliable, as they rarely get to the moral motivations behind these decisions.

So, if you’re struggling to understand why people vote as they do, realize that their decisions are probably based on different moral priorities than yours. Right now, the news media is putting out pat explanations for why voters acted as they did in the recent election. Be skeptical – the truth is far less tidy.

Decision making in the real world is messy. It isn’t what we’d like to think it is, and it doesn’t work the way we’d like to think it does. It’s not a neat, linear process that always yields good choices. And don’t think that this applies to everyone but you – you’re no more rational than anybody else.

So, why do we make decisions so impulsively? Look no further than evolution. The world in which we evolved was much simpler than our current one. The decisions we faced were also simpler, and being able to make decisions quickly was essential. This pattern of rapid decision making – which served us so well in ancient times – doesn’t work well in our modern and increasingly complicated environment.

So, when you face decisions, remember that your own evolved brain may not be perfectly suited to the task. Be skeptical of your initial instincts and force yourself to think things through. You might find yourself making better choices.

Laughter can be a powerful tool.

When beginning focus groups or interviews, it’s necessary to inform participants that the session is being recorded. My explanation for this is that “I’m too lazy to take notes.” This generally gets a bit of a laugh. But this lame joke also serves a purpose. The beginning of qualitative research can be nerve-wracking, for both participants and researcher. Humor can help dissipate some of the anxiety.

Humor is a useful tool in many situations, and it serves some important purposes:

It lightens the mood. When people are in an unfamiliar situation, they get anxious. Humor releases tension and can defuse that apprehension.

It enables candor. A little humor can demonstrate that you’re not worried about anything anybody might say, suggesting others shouldn’t worry either.

It lowers the stakes.  Qualitative research is often seen by participants as being ‘important’ and ‘serious.’ And they’re right. I’ve never worked on a study that wasn’t of crucial importance and to be taken seriously. However, this perception can work against participants relaxing and saying what they really think. If people are trying to say the ‘right’ thing, or worried about saying something ‘wrong’, they’re unlikely to be honest.

Why is humor so effective in facilitating honest interactions? Because it’s both subversive and transgressive. Subversive because it can be contrary to cultural norms. Transgressive because it can cross the boundaries created by those norms. So, humor can create that ‘just us chickens’ vibe that can be so valuable.

For example, ethics require qualitative researchers to disclose that colleagues are observing the research. Knowing they’re being observed could make people a bit uncomfortable. So, when making this disclosure, I often will make a joke at the expense of the observers such as “we put them on the other side of the mirror because they’re kind of funny-looking.”

The key thing about humor, particularly in professional or business settings, is to know exactly why you’re using it. Don’t just make a joke for the sake of being funny. Whether it’s to build rapport, boost morale or defuse conflict, be sure you have a purpose in mind.

And beware of the risks. There’s always a possibility you could say something others might find unprofessional or offensive, despite your intentions, so make sure the potential rewards outweigh the risks. Here are a few guidelines I follow:

Know your audience. Understand their sensitivities and cultural backgrounds.

Consider the context. Make sure humor is appropriate for the setting.

Avoid controversial topics. ‘Nuff said.

Assess reactions. Be ready to pull the rip cord if a joke seems to be falling flat.

So, go ahead. Let yourself be funny. Just don’t do it thoughtlessly.