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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nEfficiency > curiosity <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
One of the great joys of being a quallie should be the fact that, as an actual grown up, you get paid to buck this trend. We are inherently curious people, right? We proudly proclaim it on our CVs and emblazon it across our agency websites. But how often do we really<\/em> allow ourselves to get genuinely curious? <\/p>\n\n\n\n We all accept the need to balance curiosity with commercial pragmatism; after all, there are always boxes to be ticked, hypotheses to be proven, time sensitive business cases to be validated. But in an age where efficiency \u2013 turbo-charged by the near infinite possibilities offered up by AI \u2013 dominates industry discourse, we run a huge risk of undermining our ability to take the scenic route in pursuit of transformative insight. Overstuffed discussion guides packed with unanswerable questions have been an issue for time immemorial, but partner this with the increasing need for BETTER! FASTER! CHEAPER! and we quickly become alarmingly adept at diluting the potency of our craft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So as we attempt to keep fighting the good curiosity fight, who better to take inspiration from than the crayon-wielding sleep thieves in our lives. Don\u2019t believe that you should take advice from someone who eats mud? We beg to differ… <\/p>\n\n\n\n 1 \/ Take the path less travelled<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Have you ever heard a 4 year old trying to figure something out? A linear process it is not. Detours and handbrake turns dominate; spontaneity rules. You should give it a try. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Take a recent example of some groups we were running for a hotel client. A seemingly innocuous gripe about the insufficient number of hangers in the room was seized on by the moderator who sensed that there was something more important hiding under the surface. The conversation rapidly unfurled \u2013 what started as a complaint about a clothes hanger quickly morphed into an impassioned discussion around the patriarchal design of the classic hotel room. This then opened up a debate around hotel room safety, and the largely unspoken but profoundly felt vulnerability experienced by solo female travellers. As the anecdotes started stacking up you could sense the atmosphere on both sides of the glass shift. Raw, confronting and unexpected \u2013 but critical for our client to understand. And all because someone had both the will and permission to prioritise curiosity over process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 2 \/ Get physical (not literally)<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n When you spend time observing kids trying to make sense of the world, it quickly becomes clear that it\u2019s as much a physical experience as it is an intellectual one. Sounds, smells, shapes and textures \u2013 these are all critical pieces of the puzzle. Just ask any parent who\u2019s tried in vain to stop a feral toddler picking up a slug or climbing into the washing machine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If we accept that curiosity is as much about physical environment & context as it is question and answer, then that should also raise red flags around the significant uptick in remote, online qual post pandemic. The dizzying array of specialist online qual tools we have at our disposal can be amazingly effective in the right context, but too often the decision to host fieldwork online is driven more by the desire to avoid a late finish in St Albans than it is to maximise the chances of uncovering the gold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Passionate quallies will always remember those genuine Eureka fieldwork moments \u2013 and for me at least, these have always been in situ; whether that be whilst perched on a crate of baked beans in rural Suffolk or in a swanky back room in Toyko. If you think that being there will make a difference, then do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 3 \/ Stop people pleasing!<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Time and space is also critical in giving space for another key tenet of the curious mind \u2013 the need to challenge. One of the most exhausting aspects of sharing a home with curious kids is their absolute refusal to accept half arsed responses. Painful in the domestic context perhaps, but a vitally important lesson to take into our work. Respecting and holding space for respondents should never mean accepting their perspective at face value; they are as prone to contradictory, obtuse and lazy thinking as anyone else, and the best practitioners are those willing to put in the work to call it out and dig deeper \u2013 even when it ruffles feathers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And while you\u2019re at it, worry less about wowing the back room; pre-schoolers don\u2019t care about looking like the smartest person in the room in pursuit of answers, and nor should you. The most elegantly crafted question is rarely the most potent, so make it a personal mission to prioritise the important questions over the pretty ones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n