Punk Voices | Belonging in Research

Sent into the mosh pit by Lynda Thompson, Owner at Lynda Thompson Research

What on earth is Research anyway?

Research is a complex business. Good research projects can have complex implications for businesses. Research findings can make business leaders uncomfortable. Imagine you lead a business (a business you champion in your daily efforts, may even have started yourself) and research tells you that you could be more effective, successful, astute and inclusive if you listened to your users, changed something you’re doing and refocused your daily efforts.

Would you want to hear that? Would you be prepared to act on it? Trust it?

Research can transform a business and its thinking. But it can also make people (leaders, investors, staff, customers) uncomfortable.

Working in this curious field has many entry points. And once you’re in, you have a plethora of options.

You’re probably a questioner, you’re likely curious. You may be logical and want clear answers and clear-cut data; you may be open to veering off course when you ask a question, happy to see where it goes (this is me). Persistent pursuit of answers is key to this career.

People who work in research (and there are many kinds of research for many kinds of people – user/customer research, social and market research, academia) come from a multitude of backgrounds but what unites them is their curiosity and their yearning for answers. They may want answers to business questions, evidence of people’s circumstances to influence policy, to improve services and implement change. They may need to check that something worked (or didn’t work and then help fix it).

Don’t panic if you don’t belong

I did an American Studies degree which felt like a bit of a cop out at the time, but selecting a degree with the critical thinking whammy combination of studying literature, film, history and politics was prescient as it turned out. It was a great grounding for my future career. But it didn’t set me away on a research career straight away. Firstly, I took a software training meander for 15 years.

Belonging is a huge issue for researchers. Where do you fit? What are your interests, your values and skillset? Does it even matter if you do something you care about? A job’s a job after all. I’ve discovered during a 35 year career that often it’s your personal circumstances that influence where you end up, rather than you doing what you really want to do (if you even know).

It’s a rare researcher that can pick and choose work they want, and impact where they end up, especially if they have any issues which hold them back (in my case a health condition, endometriosis). I’m also an expert in nothing but have discovered this is a strength as a researcher; I also have the necessary humility of someone who wants to acquire knowledge and respect those who give it.

I always call myself a ‘customer researcher’ – it’s the term that seems to have the best fit and probably the hill I’ll die on. I’ve always been on the edge of market and social research (and I’m about as far from an academic researcher as it’s possible to be). I worked on the cusp of user research in the 1990s and early 2000s, before cloud-based software (we did very customer focused development with standalone, and then networked, software – pre wireless connection).

I’m now a client-side researcher as well as an independent consultant (which could be described as ‘agency side’). These two sides of the research coin don’t really exist in academic research, it’s a way of working that’s evolved in mostly market research to meet a need. For example, in my roles in house (client-side) I’ve both done the research myself AND commissioned it out to others. I’ve also commissioned and managed projects in house. All in all that means I have a fair idea of what it’s like on both sides. What I’ve never done is work at an agency, so I don’t have that experience, but I have done some associate work for them and I’ve also been lucky enough to partner with great agencies when I’ve briefed them as a client to work on projects. That kind partnership is one of the things that I really love about research. Defining a problem and empowering someone else to come up with the method that will best result in answers that you can use (or that can inform further questions as so often happens – I often say that research begets research).

Tug of War or Collaborative?

However, there’s a kind of tug of war at play in this client agency relationship, I’m not sure it’s akin to other types of consultancy relationship. There’s a closeness to the commissioning business that the agency (or independent freelancer) needs in order to understand the business problem, decide on the appropriate methodology and do the research. This often manifests as a willingness to please and to achieve, whilst also being very aware that you need to be assertive, proactive and insightful. There’s pressure on the other side too, clients want value for money and access to expertise they don’t have in house. For my part as a client I like to be challenged and expect to be presented with innovative solutions (sometimes at first glance I think it’ll be a struggle to afford them, but I’d far rather consider different methods than always do the same things over and over).

I was definitely born to have this career (in fact, I was named for it – ‘Lynda with a Why’), and I believe everything I did when I was younger was leading to it, but I didn’t formally train as a researcher until I was 42. I had an ‘Aha’ moment doing the MRS (Market Research Society) Advanced Certificate in Market and Social Research. It had been a long time since I’d done any formal study, my last ‘certificate’ was my Postgraduate Certificate of Education, or PGCE, when I was 26).

In a field where on the job work experience is vital, unless you’re an academic and your research is education based, it’s sometimes hard to know if you’re doing it right; having that MRS qualification was really important to me.

But even that course didn’t quite reveal the complexity of the MR (market research) sector. Doing that course was sponsored by the business I worked for and I applied the learning to that organisation and its needs. We didn’t commission agencies, our in house team was small and we did all the desk research, quantitative and qualitative work ourselves. I’d come from the software design and development team so my qual skillset was firmly embedded in user experience and customer consultation (having previously been a software trainer). It wasn’t until much later that I worked as an independent consultant and as someone who briefed others. That was when I became aware of the agency world.

Now I often feel caught between the two, not sure where I belong (in house vs external consultant) and it can be isolating – I haven’t found many others that do it. There’s constraint in both but when researchers collaborate there is also strength. I’ve come to realise that it’s powerful (and sought after) to have the skillset to carry out both roles as well as understand the drivers on each side (and actually I feel discomfort when I say ‘sides’, I yearn for this to be a collaborative arrangement and I’ve seen some great examples of this).

Belong but don’t be afraid to Push Back

I have the benefit of maturity and the luxury of reflection on a successful career (with some setbacks but that I can now see made me the researcher I am today).

If you’re not sure what’s right for you in terms of sector/topics/skillset/expertise you’re going to have to experiment and try things. THIS IS OK (I really wish I’d known this). A good researcher literally can’t rest on their laurels and in fact the pursuit of ‘belonging’ as a professional could hold you back from being a research ninja.

One crucial thing I’ve learnt is that it’s ok to THINK (in fact one boss calmed me down when I was agonising about it looking like I wasn’t doing anything – “you have permission to think”, he said). Often your work as a researcher is ‘hidden’ away, especially the analysis; working out what the hell all the stuff you found out actually meant…in fact “we are ‘interpreting’ all the time during the research process – as in the rest of life – trying to make sense of what we are hearing, seeing and feeling, as the project progresses” (Sheila Keegan in the excellent ‘Qualitative Research’).

Be yourself is the main point here, and don’t worry if you don’t ‘belong’. Not everyone is meant to belong, but if you know YOURSELF, you are more likely to find your people.

If you’re curious about my squiggly career you can find out here (or ask me, I’m a fairly open book).

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