For this particular “learning experience”, I hadn’t really played for months, so I was pretty rusty (not that I never get really… “un-rusty, at least at golf).  A friend and I were paired up with another twosome for our round. They seemed nice enough; members of the club where we were playing.

The first few holes went okay. The other twosome was playing much better than we were, unsurprisingly. By the time we got to the 6th hole, my game fell apart. I suddenly looked like I had never swung a club before. I’ve come to expect this from my game, but I did notice something that really surprised me. On the same hole, the other three players all crumbled as well. As a group we put 6 balls in the lake, topped numerous shots and almost hit each other twice. One guy from the other group quit about half-way to the hole saying he’d never played so badly…

It appeared that my collapse spread as broadly and quickly as a virus. By the end of that hole, our group had suddenly conformed to a strict dynamic of poor play. Inexplicably, my poor play (and perhaps my frustrated demeanor) seemed to be holding the others back from their true potential.

Group dynamics are real, and are extremely hard to compensate for. In golf, a given foursome may rise to the skill level of the top players or wallow in the futility of the group’s worst player. It’s true for other situations as well (although skill is often replaced by optimism/pessimism). I’m not sure what causes this, but I’ve seen this dynamic proved true in meetings, projects, games, and even simple group conversations.

This same trend is true when trying to really understand consumers. Talk to them one at a time in their natural environment, and you’re likely to see the real person complete with desires, pains, realities and fantasies. Bring them into a group and talk to them all at once, and they will inevitably begin “swimming in the same school” of thought. Most of us are hyperaware of group dynamics when it comes to pessimistic feedback (person A affected others in the group too much, so the feedback is invalid), but we are all too willing to forget about groupthink when we’re hearing something we like. It’s human nature: humans in groups think and act as a single unit, not as a collection of independent, unique minds.

If you’re seeking consumer understanding, be intentional about what kind of information you’re trying to gather and how you’re trying to gather it.  If you’re looking to find out how a group of people will react to something, studying people in groups is perfect.  However, if you’re looking to discover how individuals think, act, or live, you’re fooling yourself if you think a focus group or other group study will provide you accurate understanding.

Have you had success/frustrations using groups to understand consumers?

A friend of mine is in the consumer durables segment, but was talking to an executive at a healthcare company. The executive recognized a skill-set in my friend that his company was lacking. So he encouraged him to send in a resume.  My friend did just that, but somehow the resume was intercepted by Human Resources, who proceeded to tell him that they are not interested because he has… you guessed it; “no experience in the health care industry.”