The research business can be precarious at times. Studies have to be completed at breakneck speed, clients push for particular outcomes and trendy colleagues promote the latest fads. Or perhaps it's difficult to muster enthusiasm for yet another presentation.

In such situations, it is critical to avoid the lure of being "just a little bit bad" and conducting mediocre research. The following are Jenny Schade's Seven Deadly Sins of Research:

Deadly Sin #1:
Working in the Dark

It is not unusual for a study to become ineffectively long because various departments want to insert pet questions or topics into the mix. When beginning a research study, start by defining what you want to determine and how you will use that information. That overall objective will serve as a beacon of light for the entire initiative, focusing efforts on the desired outcome.

The question, "What do we want to walk away from this research knowing?" will determine your methodology and keep you focused on your goal. If others want to add survey questions or additional focus groups, always refer back to your original defining question(s) to determine whether the additions will add value. A tactful, "We initially agreed that XYZ is our overall objective. Has that changed?" is an effective way to keep the study focused.

Deadly Sin #2:
Projecting from a Paint Chip

Have you ever tried to choose a paint color for your wall from one of those little paint chips? It's just about impossible to get an idea of how the whole wall is going to look from a tiny square of color. To really know how paint will look in an entire room, you need to paint a large section of the wall.

The same concept applies if you conduct research with a tiny sample size -- it's inaccurate to generalize responses from a very limited number of people. For quantitative research, 100 responses is a starting point for conducting a valid survey, depending upon how many subsets you want to analyze. For example, if you want to compare men and women, you need at least 100 of each.

Even with qualitative research, it's important to conduct enough interviews so that you can feel confident in your findings. Or, as a client from Kraft Foods once said, "At the end of the interviews, I want to know in my gut that what you are recommending is the right thing to do."

Here's a quick example: An organization in the hospitality industry engaged JRS Consulting to determine what was behind a dramatic downturn in customer traffic. Our client was sure the physical amenities were to blame, and we were asked to interview customers about potential improvements to the facility.

Our confidential customer interviews revealed that the real issue was a service problem, beginning with the general manager and cascading down through the staff. Expensive physical renovations weren't required; the key to improvement was intensive customer service training. Because this startling revelation was the result of 30 interviews with key customers, our client "knew it in his gut" that we were on the right track. Five interviews wouldn't have done it – or done justice to the staff. It was imperative that we speak to enough customers to ensure our findings were accurate.

Deadly Sin #3:
Putting People to Sleep with Data

Research professionals are also intriguing story-tellers -- or at least they should be. Obtaining the data is just the first step. Then it's our job to use the data to tell our clients a story about the respondents in the study. The goal of any research presentation should be to communicate a clear picture of the people represented by the data and why the numbers are interesting.

For example, I was invited by a Fortune 500 organization to present findings from interviews we conducted with employees in the middle of a large reorganization. My presentation was at the end of a day full of Power Point slide shows and immediately following the Human Resources explanation of a new review system for employees. As I was introduced, I watched my audience settle back in the dim light and prepare to look at charts and graphs. I heard a few faint snores from the back of the room.

That all changed when my first slide showed a small boy having a nightmare, with a frightening-looking monster under his bed! I heard laughter and gasps of surprise. Instead of launching into bullet points of findings from the employee interviews, I spoke about how the uncertainty of a reorganization accompanied by layoffs feels like a nightmare for both employees and managers. I invited the audience to understand how employees experience a restructuring and to keep that in mind as they proceeded with communications.

This approach engaged my audience and brought the research to life for them in a meaningful way -- beyond numbers and percentages. I used the research findings to tell my audience their employee story in a way that helped them to picture the employees and understand exactly how they were feeling about the reorganization as well as what needed to happen to make improvements.

Deadly Sin #4:
Getting Hung Up on Benchmarks

It's fine to get perspective from past experience, but don't get hung up on survey benchmarks. Your company is unique -- with its own culture, strategy and goals. If your employee survey results indicate a pattern of low satisfaction levels, you know there is a need for improvement. Being five percent lower than the benchmark or seven percent higher doesn't change that. If 60% of your employees indicate that they intend to stay with your company and the benchmark is 52%, should you breath easily? If you do, you may miss an opportunity to reach an even higher level of engagement.

About ten years ago I seriously considered creating a database so that I could compare client results with a benchmark. I realized, however, that this approach would eliminate my ability to focus on the uniqueness of my clients and force us to ask a series of generic questions that could be compared to the benchmark. More important than any benchmark comparisons are considerations of recent events within your company and industry. Have you just laid off 10% of your workforce? Is your industry facing a tremendous increase in global competition? If so, it would be unrealistic to expect employee attitudes to have improved during the past year and it's not particularly helpful to compare your company to other organizations and industries in vastly different situations.

Deadly Sin #5:
Failing to Act

After the research findings are in, the most difficult part begins: It's critical to make some changes. Does this sound obvious? Unfortunately, there are organizations that, upon completion of the research and identification of interventions, do not proceed with the most difficult part -- implementing change.

For example, some companies make plans to re-survey their employees one year after a baseline survey to gauge improvement, even though they have done nothing to address issues uncovered in the first survey. That is a recipe for disaster! If a company has identified issues after a survey or stakeholder interviews and does nothing about them, I can guarantee conditions will be worse one year later.

Deadly Sin #6:
Leading the Witness

When an organization has invested seven figures in a marketing program and decides to then test its effectiveness, there is a great deal at stake. At this time, more than ever, it's crucial to ensure that respondents are not biased and that the researcher doesn't succumb to pressure to ask leading questions. As much as it cost to develop the campaign, it will be even more costly if the advertising rolls out and falls flat.

For example, when conducting "mystery shopper" kinds of visits for a very upscale restaurant, we explicitly explained to the restaurant manager that none of his waiters should be informed about our research. However, when we arrived at the restaurant, the manager greeted us heartily and proceeded to join us for dinner. You can imagine the first class service we received as his companions!

Deadly Sin #7:
The "Now What?" Syndrome

Effective research should provide insight into the cause of an issue as well as concrete direction on how to make improvements. In other words, you don't want your clients to turn to each other after the research is complete and ask, "Now what?"

For example, we use advanced statistics in our communications surveys of employees to identify the key drivers of effective communications. By key drivers, we mean the strategies and tactics that are most likely to produce a desired outcome, e.g., employees feeling informed or staff supporting a merger or reorganization. This process allows us to advise our clients about where they should focus resources in order to really move the needle on achieving better business results. The pay-off for clients is more effective communications, significant cost savings and quantified measurement of results.

Qualitative interviews provide an ideal opportunity to ask customers or employees for their ideas regarding solutions or action steps to solve a problem. For example, when customers of a major retail giant complained about poor service, we drilled down to learn about the cues of good service. By asking, "What does good service look like?" we identified behaviors that could be taught to sales personnel to improve the customer experience.

In the end, no one gains from mediocre research. Avoiding these Seven Deadly Sins will elevate the quality of your work and provide your clients with the greatest value.

Jenny Schade is president of JRS Consulting, Inc., a firm that helps organizations build leading brands and efficiently attract and motivate employees and customers. Subscribe to the free JRS newsletter on www.jrsconsulting.net/newsletter.html
© JRS Consulting, Inc. 2007