A Covid Consequence: Reduced or Eliminated Professional Development & Travel
It has been over a year since I traveled for work as part of my professional development. For me, and I suspect many others, much of my professional development, learning, and growth over the years came via work travel. Conferences, meetings, out-of-town colleague or client visits have been some of my most memorable professional highlights. The travel and in-person interactions associated with these gatherings sparked unique learning and insights that occur when people get together in one place for a common purpose. I will miss this. Organizations will too, as many relied upon in-person professional development (often involving travel) to facilitate employee leadership and growth. Given a likely long future of economic recovery post-virus, it appears that we must now accept that robust professional development, and associated travel, for most organizations is forever changed. This is a huge loss and leaders must now seek alternative pathways to effectively attract, develop, retain, and grow organizational talent. In my consulting work, I discovered one alternative way to develop both organizations and employees – at all levels of the organization – through tailored qualitative research (even accomplished in a reasonable time frame!). I have seen this alternative form of organizational development, when well done, help struggling entities heal and re-frame, and, strong organizations to process and move forward. I call this alternative form of development “OTQR” (Organizational Tailored Qualitative Research). It is a powerful process with great potential for practical application.
Alternative Route for, and Bridge to, Strong Organizational & Employee Development: OTQR
OTQR (Organization Tailored Qualitative Research) is a form of organizational qualitative research that does not rely on webinars and WebEx meetings for development. It assumes that these vehicles alone are not enough for most organizations and/or employees to continually adapt and thrive. OTQR is a process designed to spark deep engagement, facilitate self and organizational reflection, introduce and practice creative adaptive thinking, and re-frame a changing environment to discover opportunities where none appeared to exist before. Depending on the precise OTQR study design, this kind of research often takes the form of organizational therapy and long-term transformation. I have designed and facilitated organization tailored qualitative research studies where I could feel the difference we were making as the study occurred.
But what is OTQR? OTQR studies come in a variety of forms (i.e. exploratory, action-research, grounded theory) and utilize various frameworks (adaptive leadership by Heifetz, Grashow, & Linksky is a favorite) that pertain to the precise problem/opportunity needed to deeply explore by by the organization. The researcher and organization come together to determine study goals and a research focus. Employees often actively participate in every aspect of the study, commonly through structured focus groups and practice creative thinking sessions. The format serves as a form of professional development for all given the open-ended structure and deep reflection required through intentionally designed questions. Although travel is most often not required in organizational tailored qualitative research studies, the learning that comes with an intentional and interactive design, focused on what is most important, cannot be matched in impact for leadership, employees, and the collective organization. Still unclear? This is probably because the very nature of OTQR is so tailored and organization specific. In doing this mission-driven organizational work, there are shared lessons I have learned, and earned, though along the way:
Seven Lessons Learned in Conducting OTQR
- MOST IMPORTANT SKILL – LISTENING
The most important skill for the researcher throughout a OTQR study is careful listening. It starts with working with organizational stakeholders to establish the unique study design, continues with the implementation of study phases, and is weaved into the meaningful findings generated at the end of the study. The power of deep listening by the researcher, hearing what is and is not being said, is a skill used throughout all phases of the research and is what makes OTQR studies so powerful for organizations to conduct.
- STUDY DESIGN MUST BE ORGANIZATION SPECIFIC (TAILORED)
As previously noted, a strong OTQR study design is uniquely tailored to the organization. This is the opposite of boiler-plate best practice and is instead sensitive to the organizational values and culture and specific goals/interests. Much like academic research, the study design is intentionally connected between method, framework, study time-frame, and research question. There is time also dedicated for triangulating information/data and pulling in artifacts, as needed, to strengthen the findings. All parts are important to the creation of meaningful findings.
- SCOPE DEFINED THROUGH RESEARCH QUESTION & GOALS
Qualitative research can quickly grow in scope and your study can suddenly become too broad to generate meaningful findings that may actually help the organization move forward. If you have done qualitative research before, you know that the research question is paramount and should be the continual focus as the study progresses. Beyond the research question, I also work closely with stakeholders to establish tailored study goals to ensure that the expectations of leadership are within the scope and embedded in the design.
- 6-MONTH MINIMUM STUDY TIME FRAME RECOMMENDED
Qualitative research takes time to do well so that it may generate findings that an organization can confidently use with an eye towards positive long-term impact. Depending on the design (and if publication is not expected), 6-months may provide enough time to move through a thoughtful process. It should be acknowledged that often qualitative studies can take even more time though, and the expected study length can sometimes expand with evolving insights as you move through the process. In funding OTQR studies, it is recommended to set realistic expectations and for most studies, 6-months would be a minimum (but possible) recommended time-frame. I tell clients to keep their eye on the prize – this kind of research generates meaningful findings for long-term organization health and success.
- RESEARCH FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS & PRACTICES REQUIRED
To conduct a commissioned OTQR study well, a researcher must at least understand the basics of conducting qualitative studies. This means a knowledge base of the various parts of research and the understanding of the criticalness of connecting these parts in a meaningful way. Even with research training and experience, it is recommended that a researcher consult foundational best practices as you go, have a fellow researcher you can use as a sounding board when forward movement is challenging, and document and track the various study components so that insights the organization did not see before may be discovered and uncovered in the findings.
- COMMUNICATE WITH STAKEHOLDERS THROUGHOUT STUDY
In OTQR studies for most organizations the researcher will analyze gathered information for insights as you go. Although a researcher does not want to pre-maturely share findings, stakeholders should be updated as the study progresses on how the work is evolving and changing as a result of on-going analysis. The tolerance for evolving insights and methods in this form of qualitative research makes the concluding findings more meaningful for the organization and should make the answer to the research question more accurate and useful. In this case patience is intentional and does pay off.
- ARE YOU HITTING THE MARK? LISTEN TO YOUR GUT
In this researcher’s experience, when you have hit the mark in your study (intentional design, connecting framework, methods that will deliver meaningful findings related to the organizational research question, etc.) you feel it in your gut. This does not mean the study is easy. Some of the most challenging studies feel the best in your gut because of the deep content you are reaching in service to the organization’s development. When you feel the meaningfulness of the work, my advice is to keep going. You are on the right track and the work you are doing has the potential to, over time, transform the organization and employees you are serving. What bridge could be better than that?
To talk more about the power of organization tailored qualitative research (OTQR) studies, find me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-murray-jensen/. If your organization is interested in exploring what OTQR could mean for you, let’s talk.