An organization I volunteer with recently presented their new strategic plan.  They had done all kinds of research to get input for the plan.  To their amazement they discovered that their newest and least used service was the one that people believed most “reflected the vision” of the group.

Hmmmm….

They were thrilled because they were spending a lot of time on this new service and they had not realized how well-known and well-thought-of it was!  Now that they knew it, they had based their overall plans for the future on this amazing, unexpected, almost unbelievably wonderful finding.

 Uh-oh.

 Any time I hear about a “Eureka!!!” finding in research – whether I conducted it or someone else did — I go into instant detective mode and grab the nearest magnifying glass to find out why.

 But wait, you say, isn’t research supposed to uncover things we don’t know?  Aren’t we supposed to make amazing discoveries?  Isn’t a “Eureka!” finding a Good Thing?

 It almost never is.  If the people inside an organization – all of them – are totally surprised about a finding — whether it is good or bad — it is usually….just wrong. 

 Something has been asked the wrong way, asked of the wrong people, messed up via technology or just plain messed up.

 The culprit in this one was the question – or rather, the choice of answers. “Which of the following best reflects the vision of XYZ, Inc.?”  The list included a number of possibilities, among them the new service – which is called (you’re way ahead of me, aren’t you?) the XYZ Vision Program. 

 The next time you’re faced with a “Eureka” finding, wait for the celebration to die down a little and ask yourself (and others) – what really happened here?