Something is going on. It’s huge and it is impacting all of us.
All of the conventional ways of ‘listening’ to people aren’t working and the signs are clear.
In the last couple of years: Brexit, The Colombian referendum, US election, etc. all point o a fundamental flaw in how data is collected.
These upsets were so spectacular because they defied all of the conventional measurement, all of the normal way that we are supposed to be listening to sentiment.
The truth is that people lie. They don’t mean to lie, but it is what inevitably happens when people think they may be monitored, or where an honest answer might cause them embarrassment.
It is now well established that they lie to pollsters, they also lie on your engagement surveys. Your internal data collection is flawed in so many ways- and of course, your survey provider will never, ever tell you this.
The old way of doing things simply doesn’t work anymore. People have changed and the old Likert scale is no longer a very useful tool.
It is why we capture stories. Our buddy, Dave Snowden, partners with us with a solution called Sensemaker; a narrative-based research methodology that enables the capture and analysis of a large quantity of stories in order to understand complex change.
It is a form of meta-analysis of qualitative data that bridges a gap between case studies and large-sample survey data. The approach offers a methodological breakthrough for recognizing patterns and trends in perceptions, behaviors, and relationships.
In other words, it gets to the truth by understanding stories, by listening, and not by ticking boxes.
Let’s talk about it if you want to know what’s really going on in your organization.
