Becoming a Listener

Guest Blogger: Fabiana Pereira, Project Analyst, iPerceptions

In doing some background research for an assignment I’m working on at iPerceptions, I had the pleasure and good fortune to come across Paul A. Samuelson’s article How I Became an Economist . This elegant, insightful and thoroughly enjoyable article describes Samuelson’s trajectory leading up to his1970 Nobel Prize in Economics. The author talks about the role of luck in life, and how in retrospect choosing to attend Harvard, after first envisioning it as “a little oasis on rolling green hills”, was a defining path for him. It reminded me of my first interview for graduate school in Brazil:

So, what do you like to read? – asked the respectable female jury member.
Anything written – I answered.
Your favorite authors?
Depends on the quote.
And… why this specific program?
Because your campus has.., hum…, thought-inspiring colonial trees.

I had decided to be myself and speak with one voice. If they accepted me, I reasoned, it was meant to be. Judging by the terrorized faces of two members of that jury, it may have been a regrettable move. However, a third jury member argued for me and I was accepted into the program. It was not only luck, but in hind sight a worthy instinct. “Never underestimate the vital importance of finding early in life the work that for you is play,” advises Samuelson.

Looking back, I too found that my work was play studying in an environment that included lush rain forest trees and a unique gathering of students and professors who, after class met to drink fresh pressed fruit juice or aromatic plantation coffee and discussed at length, our insights stemming from our different areas of study.

During these discussions, it seemed our respective jargons served to legitimize each of us. Then progressively, I saw clearly that knowledge converges to the same bottom line: an actionable understanding of the world.

A good analogy for what we are doing at iPerceptions, integrating ever more precisely qualitative and quantitative market research to provide actionable decision support. In my previous post, I evoked Di Masi’ insight of the relationship between pleasant processes and quality deliverables. Very applicable to our work, as the delight of listening to the voice of the other, is also a way to refocus on what is important to ourselves and our organizations. It is magical when, after spending long hours analyzing numbers and verbatim feedback, we identify living persons, with recognizable feelings and reason. The customer is not far away. They are our fellows – and this is a rewarding relationship.

“Always, I have been overpaid to do what has been pure fun” Samuelson says, and we hear him!