NORTHERN PLANNER

CONFUSED AS YOU ARE

recent posts

about

  • Moderating Groups 3

    So, finally, here are some pointers to dealing with the odd difficult situations you may come accross.

    You’ll come across three difficults types of behaviour:

    Dominant people taking up too much time and space liking the sound of their own voice.

    Reticent people who don’t way much and are way too shy.

    Evasive people who are just too bored to answer questions.

    I think it all comes down to rapport. Try and understand why people are behaving like they do. Dominant people are usually quite keen and really want to help – they don’t get they are helping by letting others speak too. Shy people think their opinion will get shouted down – they need to know they won’t be dismissed as dumb. Bored people need to have their interest prickedm, or do a task to make the time pass.

    I find that looking at non-verbal stuff helps – and gets to the root of why someone is behaving as they are:

    Tapping fingers and feet means someone is impatient or annoyed

    Frowning means someone’s impatient or disagrees

    Stroking the side of the nose means someone is lying or exagerating.

    Head scratch means someone is emarassed (as a shy person I do this all the time)

    Hand on neck, pressing hands means someone is quite literally hot under tha collar.

    Eyes peering over glasses means ‘i don’t believe you’.

    Cleaning glasses means ‘I need more time’.

    Look for incositencies between the spoken word and body language. And use body language yourself! It’s more subtle and less confrontional than direct words. I find cutting someone off with your hands more effective than telling them to shut up.

    If you find the group is getting out of control, it’s time to either more on to distract them, or ask the group as a whole what is going on. They’ll soon realise they’ve got out of hand and simmer.

    Using humor to defuse tension works really well.

    And in the end, it all comes down to how hou behave. Confidence helps, but if you’re showing you are interested, and you’re curious, they’ll respond well. Rehearse the bits you need to – the intro and the big bridges. Be yourself – if you’re a good listener, listen. If you’re good at bossing people, be bossy  – BUT CHARMING WITH IT! I always warn people I’ll be interrupting during the session (I get impatient) but it’s only to get them out on time…….and if I do it too much they should have a go at me. We start forming a bond right there, and they know what to expect.

    So there you go. Hope this ‘groups’ stuff is useful.

    So:

    Tap your fingers

  • Have you done your homework?

    The deadline for Paul’s Account Planning School of the Web project is fast approaching. The task is here if you need a reminder.

    While you’re on Paul’s site read this post on change. Lovely.

  • Look for the links

    Since I’m off soon, work have got me doing some creative briefing workshops over my last couple of weeks. Hopefully they’ve found it useful. I certainly have since having to teach something makes you think a little harder about how you go about things. And bump across some bad habits you didn’t know you developed. It’s also reinforced a truth about planning to me too.

    100_2827

    I see much of this job as a series of connections. Really good strategy tends to make people connect things in a different way, or remind them it’s there. That makes much of the day job about collecting lots of stimulus ready to connect it to something you’ll be working on sometime.But connections matter for the here and now too.

    It’s useful to look for overlaps between audience, market, brand and so forth… and it’s unavoidable. The more you talk about tone of voice, the more you end up talking about objectives and propositions too. That’s the secret to thinking about strategy and writing briefs I think. Start writing/thinking about the bit you can do, and soon you find you’re moving on to something else. It starts to do itself.Like the way Jigsaws get easier as you put more pieces together.

    I saw this when we were covering objectives in the workshops- soon we were talking the audience as a natural progression. Then when we talked about the audience, suddenly tone and proposition stuff just arrived. And they found that discussing it and bouncing it around made things emerge so much more easily.

    What does that mean? Start quickly and improve it as you go along. And the more you talk about it, the better it will get. Things start connecting.

  • Free stuff

    The ever generous Mark McGuinness sent me a free ‘e-book’ on time management for creative types. As he suggested, I’ve gone to chapter 5 first – managing emails and stuff. If the rest is as good this will be a gem. You can download it here.

  • A German Market in Leeds

    100_3002

    We went to a German market last night.  The Gluhwein was good, the sausage was perfect. I ended up spending a small fortune on salami by a girl who can only be classed as a sausage pusher.

    Yes we’re starting to feel all Christmassy now.

    I got in the spirit trying on some novelty winter hats. What fun.

    100_3011

  • Moderating Groups 2

    When we left this we were about to embark on group dynamics.

    First, a word on numbers. The optimum number of respondents is 6 to 8. Anything more and it’s a bunfight, anything less and it’s just narrow opinion. If you have eight you’ll get much more talking, it will be livelier, but you have to accept there won’t be equal participation. 6 allows you to coax everyone to speak, probe a little deeper. But you have to work harder to get discussion going. The choice is yours.

    100_1688

    Now, like most things, a good group comes down to preparation. You need that since things rarely go how you expect ……… which is a good thing if you manage it right.

    That means working really hard on the discussion guide. This guide works in two ways. Firstly, it’s an agreement between researcher, agency and client on what will be covered and how this will be approached. It is NOT a list of specific questions. It should be an agenda of the subjects you will cover and the things you will do to stimulate the discussion.

    It’s about getting people to talk as naturally as possible. The more artificial and stilted it is, the less useful your findings will be.

    Secondly, it’s your rock. During the course of the session, not everything will go to plan. You will forget stuff and get carried away with the conversation. The guide reminds you what you’re supposed to do and, if well planned gives you enough space to allow for specific agenda points and that all important area you want to leave in the hope of being surprised. Work hard on planning what you will do.

    That means allowing for two ‘hats’ in a session. There will be a time when you are looking for specific answers. This can form a traditional ‘question and answer session’. This is fine up to a point, but if this is all you’re going to do you may as well do quant.

    I think the real skill is the second role. A moderator should be a bit like the perfect waiter – you don’t really notice them. If you can, get them talking to each other and just steer and join in when you need to. This is when you’re going to get the best chance of real insight. Not only will they be less self-conscious, the more they talk about what they want, the more you’re likely to find out new stuff and be surprised. And that’s what you want isn’t it?

    It’s important to warm them up first though. Explain who you are, what you’re doing and what will happen. Then stimulate their curiosity as early as possible. Get them talking about something that will interest them as soon as you can, so they start to gel and relax.

    Give them a minute think about telling you something about themselves (including their name!). Like if you’re researching fairy, ask them who does the housework in their home, and who tends to do the washing up.

    And maybe consider pre-group tasks. It gives them something to talk about, and it can produce a useful springboard for creative stimulus. Like asking people to do a quick picture of the view from their favorite seat in the house if you’re researching sofas, or maybe a collage of what they remember from childhood if you’re talking to potential parents. I got people in the market for a house to bring in their idea of a perfect home. without exception they brought in newbuild brochures – it showed us they were VERY open to be told what to like, as opposed to having a firm opinion.

    Anyway after the warm up, where they begin to form a group mentality, try to follow a process that roughly follows this model:

    Storm – throwing out all the things they want to get off their chest, lots of internal difference and maybe disagreement

    Norm – begin to move towards common ground. Things they can agree on.

    Perform – get them thinking for you, throwing out ideas and doing tasks. Tasks are brilliant. They stop people being bored, draws out the quieter ones and can bring you closer to the truth. Like the famous Porsche example where Porsche drivers all had to draw them in the car. They all did a view from the windscreen, allowing the agency to understand that Porsche drivers are driving enthusiasts rather than image driven wankers.

    Mourn – gradually bring them down and let them disengage.

    Pace and tempo are really important. Boredom is your enemy. The more you vary the pace, stimulate, intrigue and use humour to defuse any tensions, the better. For them, which means for you. You’ll get better results.

    The last post on this will cover difficult groups, for now, here’s a final thought.

  • Happy thoughts

    I know it’s a Monday, you’re in a bad mood and want to be left alone. But if you can, spare a minute and send happy thoughts to the gang at Cynic. You won’t find a kinder, more generous bunch anywhere, but they’re all a bit low at the moment.

    The North wishes them well.

  • Not thinking

    This week I did my last two significant creative briefings. One was especially fun, since the biggest chunk of stimulus was the funniest interview I’ve ever seen. I’m sort of pleased with both, it seems like there’s lots of potential and they’ll totally lock out the rest of the market. Probably wind them up too. 

    580802791_075b50dabb_m

    (picture by Jack Schultz)

    But in both cases there was no blinding flash of insight. It all sort of came together in a fuzzy mess that got less, err, messy. And what I find a bit bonkers is that I had both puzzles solved over a month ago, I just didn’t know it. All that time talking, thinking, gathering stimulus and doing funny mind maps didn’t get answers, they just sort of helped them to be articulated properly. Does that make any sense?

    Psychologists have shown that when human reflexes make them move, your body has sort of decided to do it before you have. You’ve made the choice, now you have to explain to yourself why. I think lots of strategy is like that. Somewhere in the gut you already have a pretty good idea of what to do, you just don’t quite know it yet.

    I’m afraid it still requires lots of work for it bubble up to the surface. And I guess it’s why some planners never entirely switch off. They’re having this odd internal conversation with themselves. They’re taking in new information all the time and connecting it to what they know without realising they’re doing it.

    That’s why I really annoy people sometimes. They’ll be happily telling me something and I’ll be listening with genuine interest – but then they’ll see the eyes go all glassy and they’ll know I’m somewhere else again. Drives them (and me) mad.

    Of course the catch is that when you try to do it consciously you can’t. If you play sport you’ll know what I mean. I used to know some swimmers who swam beautifully in the heats, but then choked in the finals. When the pressure was on, they began thinking about what they were doing, and found they couldn’t swim as fluidly as before. It happens it tennis when a low ranked player falters in the home straight against one of the stars. They realise what they’re doing. They choke.

  • Moderating Groups 1

    As promised.

    We won’t cover the pros and cons of groups, but you’ll come across them at some point, like it or not. It may be useful to know what to expect.

    100_2001

    We won’t cover the skills you’ll need to uncover true insight rather than mere information. That’s covered elsewhere, and there’s no better place to look than Truth Lies and Advertising by John Steel.

    We’ll look at the art of how to manage the group itself. It’s a lost planning skill which is a shame. I think that every now and again, you should do your own. It saves a fortune if you’re pitching and there’s nothing like meeting real people face to face.

    In any case, if you have a better idea of how groups work, you’ll be much better placed to work with your researcher.

    But it is terrifying if you haven’t done it before. So do as many internally as you can. Bribe people in the office with sandwiches, do whatever it takes. It costs a lot to get 8 people in a room, you don’t want to waste that money. So get half good.

    Two things are likely to go wrong:

    1. No one talks and you can’t get the conversation going.
    2. They’re uncontrollable and everyone insists on talking at once, leaving your agenda ruined.

    So we’ll cover the key skills of moderating, interviewing skills and group dynamics. Then it need never happen.

    Basic interviewing techniques

    If you ask a simple question, you’ll get a simple answer. Qual is about depth, digging underneath what people say and do to understand why. Simple direct questioning never gets under the skin of the issue. And people rarely say what they mean. They overclaim, and the real attitudes are usually unconscious and difficult to put into words.

    So good interviewing is about ACTIVE LISTENING. Constantly thinking about why people are saying what they are, looking for contradictions, reading body language. It involves constant probing. Here’s some rules of thumb:

    • Reflect and echo what they’ve said. This will show empathy and relax people.
    • Paraphrase and summarise what people have said in your own words. It allows you to check you’ve understood what people have said – if you allow them to correct you.
    • Meta commenting – expressing what you believe is going in the group is great for drawing out bigger themes.
    • How you behave is crucial. You’ll develop your own style – some are bossy and challenge, others are calm, warm and open. But common traits of good moderators tend to be transparency – appearing honest and truthful, being non-judgmental and interested in what people think and showing as much empathy as you can.
    • Help people articulate what they’re saying. Prompts where you can to get more out of them – repeat the bit they said that’s interesting to get more (fresh garlic you say?) And get clarification….."You think that because…" "I’m interested in why you say that.."
    • And body language helps getting out more – lean forward, look quizzical, nod as they speak.
    • But use ‘Why’ sparingly – if you keep asking people to justify what they’re saying you’ll just piss them odd and they’ll go cold on you. Consider replacing it with, "How come?" "Why do you think that is?"
    • You can really open up a line of questioning by slowly and gently asking things like, "i wonder what was in your mind when you said that?" But you can change the pace and finish off question with more closed versions, like, "So what’s the main benefit?".

    Group Moderating

    To me it’s a mix of two roles. One one hand you’re a detached neutral observer collecting data, but on the the other, you’re a dynamic problem solver wanting their help. It’s a neat trick to be detached AND sponge like, but no one said this was easy. Much of it comes down to group dynamics.

    And those will be in tomorrow’s post.

  • Christmas ideas

    Mainrelogo

    If your struggling to find Christmas presents, you could do a lot worse than look here at Re. Lots of unique textiles and nick knacks. These mats are quite fetching.

    Mats

    Scott showed me the way. If you’re after something unique, there should be something here that suits.