To be a qualitative researcher, or just to be a researcher?

Introduction

In this piece I will cover the topic of Fixed vs Growth mindset, based on Carol S. Dweck theory about how much your mindset affects your ability to accomplish things. It will also relate back to Mary C. Murphy’s book Culture of Growth, where she writes about how a Fixed vs Growth mindset can affect companies when it comes to risk taking, creativity and innovation. My angle on this will be related to my own mindset regarding my role as a researcher and how a fixed mindset potentially can have a harmful effect on the end product itself. 

I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone how big of an impact our mindset can have on our ability to grow, and how important it is to enable a growth mindset. But what I have discovered is no matter how much studies and research I read on the topic I still get stuck in somewhat a fixed mindset over and over again. Not so much about the product innovation itself but how I define my role. 

But let’s start from the beginning. What does Carol S. Dweck and Mary C. Murphy mean when they talk about fixed vs growth mindset? 

“For thirty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.” // Carol S. Dweck

You are taught from an early age that certain traits in your personality or your abilities are better than others. Things you are dealt with you just have to live with, and those things can’t be changed. Saying “I’m not a maths person”, telling yourself and sometimes with the help from others convincing yourself you are one thing or another limits your ability to actually grow. Carol S. Dweck has also studied a lot how this kind of fixed mindset affects groups of people. And this is what Mary C. Murphy writes about in her book Culture of Growth, how this limitation in your own mindset as an individual or in people around you can spread and create a culture in organisation which harms creativity and innovation.  

Carol S. Dweck writes that “Growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others.” I interpret this as nothing is static, it can be impacted from people and things around you if you let it. 

“A few modern philosophers...assert that an individual’s intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism....With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgement and literally to become more intelligent than we were before.” //Carol S. Dweck

This is the basic concept of fixed vs growth mindset.

What does this have to do with product development?

I shortly wrote about Mary C. Murphy studies how a fixed mindset can harm organisations and companies. But I want to talk about this from another perspective. Not so much about people culture, more about product culture.  Or maybe the combination of the two.  

We have to understand what our customers want to achieve and adapt our roadmaps to those objectives to create something truly valuable, right? This is what we call Outcome based roadmapping, and that is also the purpose of OKR’s, we create overall objectives, and then we define, decide, experiment, iterate on how to achieve that.

But how do we approach product roles in the same manner?

To be or not to be a qualitative or quantitative researcher?

A long time ago I wrote a piece on subliminal errors, a study that was made on how “defining” certain traits about your personality could affect your score on a test. A sample of respondents consisting of asian women had to take a fairly complicated maths test. And before the test they got to answer some quite personal questions. One group had questions regarding their asian heritage, one group focusing on them defining themselves as women and then there was a control group with neutral questions. And going in with the stereotypical conception of Asians being good at maths, the group that answered questions empathising with their asian heritage scored much better than the group focusing on them being women. With stereotypical beliefs that women are bad at maths. 

I think this relates to this topic, getting stuck with convincing yourself that you’re one thing or the other or just constantly saying to yourself “That is not my thing”, “I’m not this or that person”. How much of an effect that can have on your ability to solve things and to grow. No matter if that comes from yourself or a societal norm, or in many cases both. 

Me Me Me - all about me

I grew up saying “I’m not a maths person” because one teacher once told me I didn’t have to try to get better grades because it would just not happen for me. But you know what, I work with logic all the time. Not maths in the traditional sense, but with data and logic at least.

I used to work as a front end developer, so I come from a fairly technical background in relations to UX-researchers in general. But when I work with data scientists which I do quite often I come from a very qualitative background because I have studied HCI and done  A LOT of qualitative research. I would like to rephrase that - more correctly I have gathered and analysed a lot of qualitative data. 

I love quantifying qualitative data, which I know sometimes can be a bit controversial in the qualitative research community. The feeling might be that I reduce humans (human behaviour) down to numbers and code. But for me that is a way to keep myself unbiased, become more systematic and efficient. When I prepare qualitative data in a more quantitative manner it allows me to work much more efficiently. I can use that data together with quantitative data and business data. Connect customer values and behaviours to revenue and other more quantitative data sources. I love trying to be the bridge between UX-researchers who often sits in a CX or Design part of an organisation and Data Science which often belongs to Tech or a Data department. But what is the difference, we all want the same thing, we want to do what is best for the product no matter how we do it, or what we call it, or how we define it.   

A colleague of mine said that one approach to this is instead of saying “I’m a UX-designer” you say “I do UX-design activities”. Because that states what you do not who you are. It is much easier to change or adapt what you do instead of changing who you are. And maybe you don’t wanna change who you are for a job, well I know I don’t. But I gladly change the way I do things, learn new stuff and adapt to the job at hand.  

So I think we can inherit how we approach our definition of roles within product to become more Outcome-driven. I want to do what is best for the product no matter the method, and I don’t want my role definition to limit my growth in this field. 

Like always, I understand this doesn’t come without challenges. Definition of our roles helps us to understand salary levels, it helps us to not get burned out and it helps us to keep focus. But I think we could adopt it as a mind game at least. To give us a chance to excel, to grow our product and foremost to grow ourselves in our profession. And not let a fixed mindset and a definition about our role stand in the way of progressing and learning new things. I don’t mean you have to be the best at everything, and burn yourself out. It could also mean you start reaching out to other people in other roles in the organisation. Because you have allowed yourself to see other solutions beyond what your fixed mindset was able to. For the benefit of the product.  

I think I will start saying I’m a Researcher, not a qualitative researcher nor a quantitative researcher but just a researcher and I will do activities that will benefit the product and the organisation in the best way possible. No matter the method or definition.  

So maybe you don’t have to play with the cards you’re dealt with, maybe you can let yourself change or add cards to your stack. Who sets the rules for your deck? ✋🏼

Outro 

Ok so that last part might have become a bit too much. But from a very personal point of view I think it will be rewarding for me to stop focusing on the things I’m not, and instead focusing on the problem that needs to be solved for the benefit of my customers and myself.