The lens I forgot to look through

A few months ago, I worked on a project for a shoe brand. The brief was straightforward — understand what features runners and non-runners look for when buying sports shoes. I read the brief, understood the objective, received guidance in designing the methodology, and conducted the interviews. I thought I had a solid grip on it.

Recently, one of the partners at my firm pulled up this project in a conversation with me. Not to discuss the findings. But to show me something.

He began asking me a few questions- Why do you think this study was commissioned in the first place? What will the brand actually do with these findings? You interviewed serious runners — but serious runners are a tiny fraction of the market. Why would a brand that's barely making a dent in the sports shoe category go after that segment at all?

I had no answers. Not because the questions were too hard. But because they had never crossed my mind. Not once. Not while I was reading the brief, not while I was conducting the interviews. Not at any point during the entire project.

That was the moment I realised — I had done the work. I just hadn't thought about it.

I came into this job with a Master's in Behavioural Science. I knew how to think about people — why they make the decisions they do, what drives them, what they say versus what they actually mean. What I didn't realise was that understanding people and understanding a business problem are two very different skills.

My education prepared me to ask "Why do people behave this way?" Market research asks something slightly but importantly different — "what is this brand trying to solve, and what does human behaviour have to do with it?" The first question starts with people. The second starts with a problem. While I was trained to think about the former, I had quietly assumed the latter would follow naturally.

It didn’t.

What I realise one year in, is that being part of a research firm requires a completely different mental gear - one that nobody had told me existed, and one that a classroom was never going to give me anyway.

The more I sat with what was pointed out to me, the more uncomfortable I became. Because I started to see the same thing everywhere in my work. When I'm given a task, I do it. I read what I'm supposed to read, I produce what I'm supposed to produce, I deliver what I'm supposed to deliver. On time, to the best of my ability. That was the job, right?

Wrong!

What I didn't see — couldn't see — was the step that comes before any of that. The step where you stop and ask: What is this task actually trying to achieve? What problem sits underneath it? What would make this work genuinely useful rather than just complete?

I was so focused on getting things done that I never stopped to ask what things were worth doing — and why.

Thinking is a separate skill from doing. I assumed if you were smart enough and worked hard enough, the thinking would just happen along the way. It doesn't. At least not the right kind.

Here's the strange thing I've realised. Behavioural science, at its core, is about looking underneath. Not accepting the surface answer. Not assuming the obvious explanation is the real one. Asking what's actually going on beneath what you can see.

That instinct — I have it. My education gave it to me.

What year 1 taught me is that possessing a tool and knowing how to use it are two very different things. Behavioural science is a lens through which market research can solve real client problems. I came in with the lens. Learning to actually look through it — clearly, at the right moment, at the right thing — that's what year 2 is for.

I'm not there yet. But at least now I know what I'm working towards.

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