Ethnographic Thinking

From Method to Mindset

Jay Hasbrouck

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351362481
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book argues that 'ethnographic thinking'—the thought processes and patterns ethnographers develop through their practice—offers companies and organizations the cultural insights they need to develop fully-informed strategies. Using real world examples, Hasbrouck demonstrates how shifting the value of ethnography from simply identifying consumer needs to driving a more holistic understanding of a company or organization can help it benefit from a deeper understanding of the dynamic and interactive cultural contexts of its offerings. In doing so, he argues that such an approach can also enhance the strategic value of their work by helping them increase appreciation for openness and exploration, hone interpretive skills, and cultivate holistic thinking, in order to broaden perspectives, challenge assumptions, and cross-pollinate ideas between differing viewpoints. Ethnographic Thinking is key reading for managers and strategists specifically wishing to tap-into the potential that ethnography offers, as well as those searching more broadly for new ways to innovate practice. It is essential reading for students of applied ethnography, and recommended for scholars too.

PART I

A Few Core Qualities of Ethnographic Thinking

1

CULTIVATING CURIOSITY

From the Field: Tokyo Wanderings

We were taking the day to immerse ourselves in the sights, sounds, and smells of Tokyo’s streets. Our team of five (including the Vice President of Innovation from the client company) had just completed two days of in-home interviews and were targeting spots around the city where we could find product offerings similar to the client’s. This was part of our overall research strategy, which included surveying Tokyo’s urban landscape for unique offerings in nutrition, beauty, and home care. Our list included everything from the latest trends among the Harajuku girls, tea at an herbal medicinary, observing a cooking class, and visiting cosmetic counters, to name a few. We also visited the major players, like Seibu, a grand retail operation reminiscent of the early mid-century heyday of American department stores, and Tokyu Hands, an eight-story patchwork of hardware, garden tools, cleaning supplies, and an array of other (seemingly random) household products. Along the way, one team member stopped to have a personalized skin analysis at a cosmetic counter, which a sales person used to determine the best products for her skin type. We also purchased some knives—an experience that went far beyond a simple housewares transaction, since wrapping and bagging the small set involved two clerks who spent at least ten minutes lavishing their attention on layering and precisely folding, first tissue paper, then wrapping paper, then carefully tying a ribbon, placing it in a box, then adding another ribbon, and, finally, putting it all into a crisp bag, delivered with two hands, a smile, and a slight bow.

Our takeaway from these experiences included some interesting and useful observations. Chief among them were the careful and intricate service designs that defined retail interactions in Tokyo. In addition to conveying the values and priorities of the sellers, these interactions were also fulfilling consumer expectations in ways the sellers were culturally bound to perform. For example, the degree of care involved in the ritual of packaging in Japan conveys a sign of value and respect, and the skin test at the cosmetic counter a sign of value placed in evidence-based aesthetics, and so on. We agreed that we might be able to use these interpretations in our project’s ideation phase to inspire new experiences that would enhance our client’s product offerings. But something was missing in our explorations. Rather than being truly curious, we were merely being inquisitive, all within the safe confines of the clients’ current product offering. This was hardly the inspiration for breakthrough or disruptive innovation.

Near the end of the day, most of the team was exhausted. We decided to head back to the hotel, drifting through random streets and alleys. Down one of the last alleys that we thought might be a shortcut (it was not), we passed a shop that caught our eye. The sign outside indicated that it was likely a shoe repair shop, but looking in the windows, the entry area resembled a very high end boutique hotel lobby—it was filled with plush high-back chairs, thick-pile carpeting, and ornate furnishings. Neither hotels nor shoe repair were officially on our radar, but the place felt intriguing and unique enough to check out.

Upon entering, we were greeted by a middle-age woman dressed in a formal black suit, starched white shirt, and white gloves who stood behind a high counter at the far rear of the store. She paused mid-task and looked up to ask how she could help. We passed through the posh lobby with its wood paneling, soft lighting, and array of different sized foot-level mirrors—all much more than you’d expect from a cobbler in the US. When we reached her station, and peered over the counter, we could see that she was working on a number of different shoes with a wide array of tools spread out before her. We told her we were visiting Tokyo and that we were interested in looking at different kinds of businesses and how their service models worked in relationship to their products. (Side note: a good local interpreter is worth their weight in gold in ambiguous situations like this.) A few casual exchanges later she was off and running, happy to tell us all about her business, of which she was obviously very proud.

Behind her, she explained, was her cobbler: a man in his 20s using what appeared to be a bandsaw on the heel of a pair of boots. Besides that, you’d hardly recognize any of the other tools in his work area (something that appeared to involve an air compressor, another machine with lots of buttons and hydraulics, and another that looked like a soda dispenser)—all on prominent display in a sterile white room, walled off by soundproof glass. It looked like an isolation booth and gleamed in sterile contrast to the stately wooden-paneled, warmly lit customer area.

We asked about the kinds of repairs she offered and the types of customers she served, to which she warmly explained a touch-up process she was performing and said, “all sorts of people come here.” Just then, one of her customers entered. A young man in his early 20s, dressed in a designer t-shirt, a head wrap and what appeared to be high fashion half-laced black leather boots. He sat on one of the chairs in the lobby for a minute or two and finished a phone call. Then he headed to the counter and was immediately greeted by an assistant who seemed to appear out of nowhere from one of the panels behind the counter. She was dressed even more formally than her boss, with a full suit, ascot, and white gloves—hair pulled back neatly.

She greeted him with a friendly smile and they immediately began a lengthy discussion. After five minutes or so, the assistant went over to another wall panel and slid it aside to reveal a huge shelving unit divided into cubicles, each occupied by a pair of shoes wrapped in a white canvas bag with a tag attached. She found the right parcel and returned to the customer with the package, which she unwrapped to show him some details on the cork sole of a platform boot. He inspected it thoroughly over a lengthy conversation. Then she wrapped the boots back up, returned them to the shelf, and retrieved a different pair for his inspection. Further conversation was followed by another close examination, after which she returned that pair to the shelf as well.

With the help of our interpreter, and a long series of small and sometimes convoluted realizations on our part, we found out that while this shop obviously offered shoe repair, the bulk of their space (subtly masked behind wooden panels along nearly every wall) was dedicated to shoe hoteling. The owner explained that most of her clients have large shoe collections, some so large that they can’t store them in their tiny Tokyo apartments. Her service frees space for them in their homes and guarantees that their shoes are always cared for properly. Aside from these practicalities, she told us that the shop’s staff has developed personal relationships with many of their customers, and that they sometimes offer tailored advice and perspective to them on not only shoe care, but style and appearance. She added that the staff is also in a position to spot new trends and share their observations across and between customers.

While this visit didn’t fit neatly into our research agenda, it did help us rethink the client’s offering in entirely new ways. It forced us to think outside our own context, not just culturally but beyond the client’s offering, and most of all, outside the comfort zone of our research plan. It helped us compare and contrast features from this extremely unfamiliar domain with those our client was looking to develop and expand. That provided inspiration for new ideas about how to combine service and product in novel ways, to redefine what customer care means, and eventually to explore new ways to integrate the role of a concierge that guides customers through interactions between product and service offerings. Furthermore, it opened the door for exploring how our client could take on the role of trend-spotter or networking hub to add value to their offering. None of this would have happened if we’d stuck strictly to our original research agenda, and the list of observations we’d scheduled.

Curiosity and Ethnographic Thinking

Genuine curiosity about human interaction—including how it’s formed and shaped—is a trait that drives the work of most ethnographers. They feel compelled to ask “why?” and “how?” in nearly every social situation they encounter. They home in on what others take for granted in everyday situations, and approach what most overlook as commonplace with intrigue. Above all, they remain continually open to other ways of thinking and different perspectives. This curious disposition of ethnographers plays out in a couple of significant ways that are beneficial beyond fulfilling the objectives of research projects.

First, even though they are professionals in cultural observation and analysis, ethnographers recognize that adopting the role of expert in the field can impede their learning about a culture. This is because many people have expectations about interactions with experts that are filled with formalized sets of behaviors loaded with implications of status and hierarchy. This can alienate research participants and limit the level of intimacy necessary for establishing rapport with them. Instead, many ethnographers find it more productive to assume the role of an apprentice in their research by opening themselves up to new experiences, impressions, and emotions as if they were learning a new trade. They follow research participants, ask questions, try their hand at new practices, learn the local lingo, and immerse themselves in the daily experiences of their figurative “master.” Some ethnographers also liken this mode of thinking to that of a child learning a new subject.

Taking on these roles can make ethnographers appear naive to others. This is because most apprentices and children aren’t afraid to ask dumb questions, repeat themselves, make obvious mistakes, or become the subject of ridicule. Their curiosity outweighs any desire to demonstrate knowledge or to assert status—since they have neither in this context. While this can make ethnographers vulnerable, it’s quite often the best way to develop a deep and personal understanding of the daily lives of research participants. In fact, I’d wager that most ethnographers would agree that few field experiences carry more meaning than lessons learned from laughter at their expense.

A second way that curiosity plays out in ethnographic thinking is through an elasticity of thinking that traverses between open explorations and making occasional connections to other domains (and back again). In many ways, this is the opposite of what we’ve been taught to do when learning new things. Throughout most of our lives, we’re encouraged to narrow and specialize. Our curiosity is channeled into subject areas and pre-determined trajectories, where we learn to focus on specific information and develop observational patterns related only to that area of interest. A biologist is adept at observing ecological interdependencies, an engineer looks for ways that different components can be integrated to solve a problem, etc.

While curiosity plays a key role in skill development in any area of interest, this narrowing tendency can obstruct learning from areas outside of the primary domain. The genuine curiosity of ethnographic thinking demands that its practitioners see the world with a wider lens. Although their perspective does narrow at times (for example, when they need to make sense of the data they’ve gathered), ethnographers most often prioritize openness and curiosity as forms of learning that help them make new and unexpected connections to the areas of human interaction they seek to understand. They approach daily routines and common interactions with a sense of wonder, always on the lookout for data that will lead to insight, and eventually, transferrable knowledge.

Broader Strategic Value: Discovering Unexpected Opportunities and Rethinking the Familiar

Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of the type of curiosity unique to ethnographic thinking is the role it plays in identifying new opportunities. At the most basic level, ethnographic curiosity exposes unexpected interactions that can broaden purviews and reframe assumptions. It also provides an opportunity to transfer learnings from one setting to another. For example, someone working in a hospital might take learnings from their observations of airport security to inspire new approaches to handling the order of patient procedures in a clinic (or perhaps more likely, their observations at the airport would help them decide how not to handle patients!). More to the point, however, is that curiosity about airport security could become a means of inspiring new ways to reinvent how people flow through other systems. Linking observations from one domain to others begins with the open-ended curiosity of ethnographic thinking. It’s a form of curiosity that’s nearly always on, and is elastic enough to link observations in the everyday world to specific points of reference in another challenge or set of circumstances.

Returning to our Tokyo explorations, that visit to the shoe hotel triggered many more useful and innovative ideas than our observations that were directly related to the client’s offerings. While our inquisitive approach in the latter did lead to small shifts in positioning the clients’ products and services, it was our genuine curiosity at the shoe hotel that eventually inspired the team to radically shift the company’s sales approach in ways that echoed the concierge model of that shop. In what eventually became a new sales model for the company, sales reps who once concentrated solely on product features or networking were asked to broaden their view and become more curious about the context of client needs. They were asked to gradually build on the needs and interests they identified with a set of offerings that integrated services, products, and experiences that were tailored to the needs of their customers. Among other things, this involved building a feedback loop from the sales force to the company’s innovation and research and development groups. This helped jumpstart the development of new offerings, including previously unrecognized service and product pairings that provided aggregate added value to customers. It also provided much deeper layers of insight into the aspirations, values, priorities, and context of customers’ lives. In some cases, this new approach even became an effective way for the sales force to recruit new sales reps from within their current customer base, effectively growing market share through expanding the curiosity of the sales force itself.

To be sure, not all companies immediately use the insights they gain from ethnographic curiosity in this way. Organizations need to be structured so that findings rooted in genuine curiosity have a pathway that leads from insights to the marketplace (or other recognizable goal). In an article on Fostering Curiosity, Dieter Imboden argues that “basic curiosity-driven research is ultimately the most important long-term resource for scientific innovation. However, the transfer of research results from the scientists to the economic system is often complicated” (Imboden, 2009). He advocates for what he calls “transfer offices” whose main task is to usher the process from curiosity to ideas to tangible outcomes. Some obvious examples of this transfer include innovation groups, research and development, consultants, or accelerators.

While this approach can prevent the loss of knowledge, it’s also important to recognize that the knowledge gained from curiosity is often cumulative, and can sometimes inspire entirely new approaches to initiatives that are completely unrelated to a project’s original objectives. Opportunities for ideas to cross-pollinate between different areas of thinking (or different parts of an organization) are only possible when teams can reference a broad and growing “catalog” of experiences that trigger those unique (and sometimes unexpected) results. Remaining continually open, receptive, and curious is the key. This means going beyond the immediate focus of a project, and integrating ethnographic curiosity as a key way of looking at the world. For people who are part of companies and organizations recognized for their innovative work, this approach clearly resonates. The 2011 Science Careers Top Employers Survey found that “When asked to describe “what makes the best company, the best,” survey respondents specifically mentioned “supports a culture of innovation,” “employee-driven curiosity,” and “innovative ideas of everyone are considered” (Milano, 2011).

As such, a critical part of a culture of innovation in any organization includes curiosity about new ways to approach internal processes, including data analysis and interactions within an organization’s operations. Because the ways many of us have been encouraged to specialize also tend to extend to the modes of analysis and interpretation we’re taught to apply to problem solving, teams can find themselves sticking to proven routines that feel safe. But what if they applied the curiosity of ethnographic thinking to their analyses and operational processes as well?

For instance, in response to a “this is the way it’s always been done” approach to data analysis, the genuinely curious ethnographic thinker looks around and considers different forms of analysis by asking: “What other ways could our data be analyzed? What other modes of interpretation might we apply to our results? Whose perspective(s) would radically change how we think about this challenge? What other tools might significantly change how we reach actionable insights? How might we approach this if we were in an entirely different organization?” By maintaining this curiosity about analysis, processes, and interactions, teams can integrate a range of analytical frameworks and different perspectives that unearth new ideas that would ordinarily be filtered out by tried and true approaches. This is useful both at the beginning of ana...