Not long ago, I was conducting qualitative research showing advertising storyboards.  During the first few groups I listened passively while the participants explained their reactions. I didn’t know what to expect, so I wanted to be open to whatever was said. In contrast, for the last couple of groups, because by then I had a good idea of what responses were likely, I listened in a much more anticipatory manner. I had a number of probe and follow up questions at the ready, and kept them in mind as I was listening.

My martial arts teacher for the past 30 years, Grandmaster Alan Simms, says there are two kinds of waiting: active and passive waiting. In martial arts, active waiting is when you’re looking for a specific opening and poised to exploit it immediately. Passive waiting is more defensive. You pay close attention to your opponent, but with no specific plan of response in mind. Rather, you are relaxed, observant, open to all possibilities and prepared to react to whatever your opponent does.

Both are valid approaches in martial arts, and also in conversation—it just depends on the purpose of the conversation you’re having.

I find that, as a qualitative researcher, I usually lean more towards the passive end of the spectrum, meaning that I’m highly engaged in listening, and open to whatever participants say. However, there’s a role for being more active, such as in the advertising research described above.

This principle also applies to everyday life. When having conversations with friends and colleagues, I really try to be as fully engaged in listening as I can. Sometimes this is hard, particularly when I disagree with somebody. But I do my best, as fully engaged listening is essential to respectful and productive dialogue. However, when I’m on the phone with customer support, and I know exactly what problem I’m trying to solve, I generally wait more actively.

It’s important to remember that this isn’t a binary thing, it’s a continuum. People are rarely completely actively or passively waiting. Rather, they’re somewhere between the two. The art lies in knowing where on that spectrum to be.

Meaningful conversation is complicated and challenging. It demands a series of skills, including  knowing when to listen, knowing when and how to wait, and knowing when to talk. There’s an art to it. As with all art, you combine instinct, practice, and time-developed skills to master it.

I was sixteen, taking a driving lesson and trying to turn left onto a busy street.

After waiting for what seemed like an eternity for a break in the traffic, I expressed my frustration to my driving teacher, Mr. Silbernagel. He replied, “if you can’t make the left, then just turn right. We’ll find another way to get where we’re going.”

A wise, patient and fearless man, Mr. Silbernagel. I’ve remembered this wisdom ever since, and have applied it to many situations.

For instance, I’ve learned that when conducting qualitative research, it’s important not to get hung up on a specific question or exercise. Sometimes the most beautifully crafted query or creative technique falls flat. At which point, I focus on the information I’m seeking and figure out another way to get it.

I’ve also learned that it’s counterproductive to push too hard to get research participants to talk about sensitive topics. Recently, I was interviewing patients suffering from a particularly debilitating mental health condition. I’d planned to broach the topic of their disorder early in the interview. However, I learned that unless I allowed the participants to bring up their condition first, the interview was not going to go well. We ended up having more small talk at the beginning of the interviews than I would have preferred, but allowing the participants to bring up their condition on their own timing got us where we needed to go.

This wisdom has helped me as a parent as well. Not getting too focused on one specific means of achieving a goal – focusing instead on the goal itself and being flexible regarding the method – is often essential to success. My wife and I both eventually figured out that, if our kids wanted to do some of their homework after dinner rather than right after school, it didn’t matter, as long as it got done.

So, next time you’re having trouble metaphorically turning left, take a leap into the unknown and metaphorically turn right instead – focus on the goal, and be flexible about the means. You’ll find another way to get where you need to go, and it might even work out better than the way you’d planned.

It’s a lot easier than being right.

My wife is a SAT/ACT tutor. One principle she teaches is that, on multiple choice tests, a key to success is eliminating the answers you know to be wrong. Then, if you don’t know the correct answer, guess – don’t leave an answer blank. This is a valuable approach that can be applied to many situations.

It certainly applies to qualitative research. I’ve found that a good way to use qualitative when evaluating multiple alternatives (such as new product ideas or advertising executions) is to eliminate the weakest ones. In other words, focus on not being wrong, rather than on being right. I once wrote a newsletter on this very topic.

We often delay decisions because we’re seeking the correct answer. But, thinking there’s one right answer is unwise and reductionist. Most situations have multiple right answers and lots of wrong ones. Even if there is one correct answer, you may never have sufficient information to identify it. The key to success over time is identifying the wrong alternatives, avoiding them, deciding quickly among the possible right ones, and moving on.

Not being wrong and being right are very different skills.

Being right is all about precision. It’s hitting your target dead center. By definition, there’s no room for error, so this is an exacting and demanding challenge.

Not being wrong is more about accuracy. If a specific answer is in the range of where the right answer is known to be, and out of the range of what we know is incorrect, it’s accurate – you’re definitely not wrong. Clearly, this is a less arduous task.

It’s important to remember that eliminating wrong alternatives is ultimately a risk-reduction strategy. Once you reduce the risk in a situation to an acceptable level, go ahead—make a decision. Failure is still possible, and you’re still taking a risk, but you’ve increased the chance of success and reduced the likelihood of catastrophe. That said, it’s also important to remember that there’s a difference between minimizing risk and never taking a risk. If you never take chances, and never fail, you’ll never do anything unprecedented.

A key question is: how much precision does a given situation really require? Is accuracy enough? A lot of the time, not being wrong is sufficient to get you to success. However, any neurosurgeons or air traffic controllers reading this should ignore those last three sentences. They definitely don’t apply to you.

A final thought. Sometimes, the only way to figure out what’s truly right, is first to be wrong. Failure is often our greatest teacher. And anyway, if you’ve never been wrong, you’re probably not trying hard enough.

I was chatting with a building contractor I know. Harry had just bought a new table saw, and was very excited.

“No way you can be without a table saw in this business,” he told me.  “It cuts a ton of wood accurately and super quick. But, if you’re not careful, it’ll take your arm off.” This is important wisdom with broad applications. There are a lot of powerful tools we can’t do without that can do damage beyond the value they provide if not treated with respect.

That’s certainly true in my profession, qualitative research. Qualitative is a foundational tool for marketers and researchers. But, when designed, executed, or analyzed poorly, it can lead to bad decisions with disastrous consequences— I’m looking at you, Crystal Pepsi!

Here are a few more essential power tools that must be used with care:

The Profit Motive. The desire for economic gain is a powerful force. Market mechanisms shape our world, and are largely responsible for our high standard of living. Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely a capitalist. But it’s easy to see the consequences of capitalism gone off the rails. Look no further than the history of the tobacco industry as an example. You could make this same argument about socialism – it’s a useful economic tool that, if misused, can really mess things up.

Intuition. It’s amazing and can advance thinking and analysis with tremendous speed. But intuition must also be viewed with skepticism, lest it lead you badly astray. I devoted a newsletter to this topic recently.

The Criminal Justice System. A functioning police and legal system is essential to a safe and free society. However, it can’t do everything. For instance, for over 100 years we have tried to use it to solve the problem of substance abuse, despite the obvious fact that this is a public health problem. So, all we’ve done is create crime and suffering. Furthermore, if a society doesn’t provide its criminal justice system with sufficient resources, it will do its job poorly, often making things worse.

Prescription Drugs. Modern pharmaceuticals are wonders of technology, enabling us to cure previously incurable diseases. The amount of suffering and death they have prevented can’t be overstated. However, it’s also possible for doctors to become overly reliant on the prescription pad. Many afflictions are better addressed through lifestyle interventions.

Ultimately, one key to success in the world is being able to use tools that are both indispensable and immensely powerful with respect and skill. Remember – the factors that make these tools so powerful are often what also make them potentially dangerous. I’d love your thoughts on other powerful tools that we can’t avoid but must use with caution.

It’s great to learn from your own mistakes, but even better to learn from somebody else’s. 

When I worked in client-side marketing, I took a job managing new products. This was a responsibility I’d never had before, as my previous positions had been on established businesses. This business unit had a near-zero success rate when it came to new product introductions, so my first priority was to identify factors that might explain the high failure rate. One commonality I found was that many of the new product concepts the company had tested quantitatively and qualitatively were fatally flawed, making failure nearly inevitable.

This served as a course on how to write concepts – I learned from the mistakes I found and was able to put this knowledge to good use. In other words, I learned to write new product concepts by first learning how not to write them.

We all make mistakes. That’s part of life. In fact, if you’re not making mistakes, it means that either you’re not trying hard enough, or you’re not taking risks. You’ll never accomplish much with that approach.

Learning from your mistakes is a fundamental life skill. However, by itself it’s insufficient for success. If you’re going to stay ahead of the pack, you also need to learn from the mistakes of others – another essential life skill. You might even say that this is a little-known superpower. There’s actually a technical term for gaining knowledge from others’ experiences: ‘social learning.’

It’s preferable to learn from others’ mistakes than your own, for a number of reasons:

Your ego interferes with learning from your own mistakes. You’re emotionally detached from other people’s mess-ups. While it’s hard to view your own mistakes objectively – or even to admit you’ve made a mistake at all – taking a clear-eyed look at somebody else’s error is not so difficult. It can actually boost your own ego. There’s probably no better way to feel smug and self-satisfied than the realization that you didn’t make the same mistake the other guy made.

The consequences are not yours to bear. When it’s your own mistake, you must shoulder the costs and clean things up. Not so when it’s somebody else’s misstep. You get to observe from a distance and chart a better course while they deal with the mess.

There are just more mistakes from which to learn. The quantity of other people’s mistakes you can observe will always dwarf your own. Thus, observing and learning from the mistakes of others – social learning – is a force multiplier.

So, make a practice of learning from the mistakes of your fellow humans. Remember – if they’re smart, they’re learning from yours, so you might as well return the favor.