Whew.

Four days. 13 Focus Groups. 84 People. 104 Questions. 900+ Answers.

And I’ve never felt better.

You know I love numbers. It’s an affliction, and I have no desire for the cure. Information, correlations, regression analysis, data tables, stat testing, etc… OMG. However when your head is buried in survey research, it is sometimes easy to forget that when it comes right down to it, we’re talking about people.

And that is what is so refreshing about the focus groups over the last four days.

I got to talk to the people. See their faces. Watch their body language. I pushed when I need to, getting to the “root cause” (as one person mentioned, ripping off the scab). I pulled back when I saw things were getting too emotional. But I never lost sight of the purpose; getting information from the employees to help their organization better meet their mission, vision, and values.

I also learned that “bless your heart” can mean almost anything when said by a Southern Belle.