Black Belt Research…

For the last 4+ months I’ve been seriously training for my Kenpo karate black belt…well, really I’ve been training for the past 3-1/2 years, but for the last few months I’ve trained at the expense of everything else (except maybe eating and drinking…Gatorade, lots of it). Aside from learning 4 forms (katas), 4 sets , as well as 64 self-defense techniques with great names like “Cross of Destruction”, “Blinding Sacrifice” and, one of my favorites, “Squeezing the Peach”–we also were required to read two books, perform community service, and, finally, write a thesis.

For my thesis, investigating the use of martial arts metaphors in business intrigued me. Often terms like “Judo Economics”, “Coding Dojo”, “Black Belt Power Networker”, and the latest “Gmail Ninja” illustrate this proliferation of martial arts metaphors both in the business world as well as life in general. Through my research I learned that much of the use of these metaphors came out of the rise in Japanese manufacturing prowess in the 1980′s–when the US economy was stagnating. In addition, Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” and David Carradine in “Kung Fu“, along with “The Karate Kid” all combined to make martial arts both mainstream and just a bit glamorous.

In addition, the rise of Six Sigma manufacturing strategy and it’s cadre of black belts (a naming convention that was a feat of marketing genius ) contributed to ‘legitimizing’ the use of martial arts metaphors in the business world.

I would have been remiss if I hadn’t taken the metaphor and applied it to my own consulting business. If Google can make me a Gmail Ninja, I figure Pallas Research can use some Kenpo to make market research better.

1. Smart decision-making: Gather as much information as you can before making a decision. Part of our student creed is “I will use common sense before self-defense”. In Kenpo, assessing whether you can remove yourself from the situation before resorting to using your well-honed self-defense skills is using that common sense. In market research, gathering data from every available resource before embarking on a custom research project can sometimes negate the need for the potentially expensive undertaking or at least will make the project more focused.
2. Be as efficient as possible: One of the three ‘pillars’ in Kenpo is the idea of using gravity to help make your blocks and strikes stronger. This ‘marriage of gravity’ helps us more petite individuals defend ourselves against much larger attackers. For research surveys, try to make them as brief as possible in order to get your information. Sure, you can use lots of questions to really hone in on a granular level, but you risk bad responses/respondents or high abandonment rates.
3. Be flexible: I can’t expect that real-world attacks will come exactly the way we have practiced over and over in my karate classes—being able to shift quickly to compensate will be imperative in a self-defense scenario. Market research projects rarely go perfectly as planned. Similarly, relaxing respondent quotas, going to other sources for sample, running different analyses are all potential mitigating activities that can help keep a project on-track.
4. Use all your tools: Many of our self-defense techniques give us ‘tools for our tool belt’ that can be used against an attacker. Whether it’s a block, strike, kick or take down—they can all be used individually or together to extricate us from any situation. Quantitative surveys, focus groups, text analytics, ethnography, social media monitoring and neuromarketing are just some of the tools market researchers can use to help companies make smart decisions. And, don’t rely on just one tool to make your decision—triangulating on an answer tends to yield better results.
5. Continuous learning: Getting a black belt is just a milestone in my ever-evolving martial arts career. I watch my sensei continue to work and hone his skills (he’s a 4^th degree black belt!) and feel that, while I have my lovely, fabulous black belt, I still have much to learn. My market research career, too, is continuing to evolve. While I write surveys and reports, analyze data and partner with super-smart folks, I still need to learn and improve my skills. Whether it’s a seminar, articles or simply reading other market researchers’ blog posts, I’m continuously working to improve my skills as a research consultant.