For decades, qualitative research has been framed around respondents, discussion guides, and moderators. The language itself betrays the mindset – research is something we do to people, not with them.
We write guides, we ask questions and we hope participants will neatly deliver the insights we’re already primed to hear. The result? At best, we generate tidy outputs. At worst, we end up confirming the assumptions we brought into the room.
The problem with traditional qualitative research is that respondents respond. They don’t lead. They react to prompts within the guardrails we create.
Discussion guides control the flow. Even when semi-structured, they subtly signal what matters to us rather than what matters to the respondents. Desired and desirable outcomes creep in. Clients and researchers often want validation more than revelation. Whilst this structure may feel safe, it often delivers answers that are predictable, convenient and sanitised.
Now consider what happens when we strip back the scaffolding. No rigid guide. No scripted prompts. No sense that participants are there to perform for the research.
Instead, we invite conversation.
Unstructured, yes, but not aimless. A free-flowing dialogue anchored in context; who the person is, what tribe or community they belong to and the lived realities they bring into the room.
In a true conversation:
- People volunteer what they think is important.
- Tangents reveal deeper meaning than direct answers.
- We hear not just the what but the why, how and the undercurrent behind behaviour.
The point of research isn’t to confirm what we already think. It’s to uncover what we couldn’t have anticipated. Rigid structures – guides, quotas, frameworks – too often bend conversations toward a desired outcome. They optimise for clarity, not truth.
Conversations, by contrast, unlock:
- Unexpected themes that would never appear on a guide.
- Contradictions that expose the tension between what people say and what they do.
- Contextual richness that situates choices in real life, not in the artificial space of a research task.
This is where insight lives – not in neatly coded responses, but in messy, human exchanges.
As researchers, strategists, and leaders, we face a choice.
Continue treating people as respondents – sources of data to fit into our categories or engage them as conversational partners – humans with stories that can reshape how we think, design, and act.
If we want to truly understand customers, employees or each other we need to move from research as interrogation to research as conversation.
Not qualitative research. Just conversation.
Have you ever uncovered your biggest insight outside the official discussion guide? What happened when you let the conversation run?
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