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The potential is enormous—in the trillions of dollars.
Robotics? Artificial intelligence (AI)? Another breakthrough technology? Actually, it’s people.
An economic analysis commissioned by Korn Ferry found that human capital represents a potential value of $1.2 quadrillion for the global economy—more than twice the value of tangible assets such as technology and real estate. That fact should give CEOs pause for thought—especially those who hold the exact opposite view.
Korn Ferry interviews with 800 leaders of multimillion-dollar global businesses about where they believe growth and value will be generated in the future uncovered responses that are, quite frankly, startling:
- Nearly two-thirds (63%) believe that, in five years, technology will be their firm’s greatest source of competitive advantage.
- More than two-thirds (67%) believe technology will create greater value in the future than people.
- Nearly half (44%) think that robotics, automation, and AI will make people “largely irrelevant” in the future of work.
- When asked to rank what their organization’s top five assets will likely be in five years, the company’s workforce did not even make the list. Instead CEOs named (in order): technology (product, customer channels); R&D/innovation; product/service; brand; and real estate (offices, factories, land).
It’s important to understand where these leaders are coming from. As they noted in the study, technology is becoming central to their thinking and execution—accounting for 40-60% of their priorities when it comes to strategic focus, financial investment, and C-suite time. Another reason for tech-centric thinking among leaders is the fact that 40% of those surveyed said they have experienced shareholder pressure about direct investments in tangible assets such as technology.
Additionally, when we think about the greatest advancements of the last 50 years, technology surely tops the list. Within their lifetimes, many people have witnessed unimaginable breakthroughs, from the advent of space travel to the internet.
But of all the technological changes of the past half-century, nothing can match the greatest asset of any organization: its people. Technology and innovation cannot happen without people. Without talent, there would be no smartphones, no 3-D printer, no AI and machines with the capability to learn.
It sounds counterintuitive, but as the shift occurs to a more technology-enabled society, a company’s talent becomes more important. In particular, the outliers of talent—the “high-potentials” who possess such traits as learning agility and change agility—are going to be in greater demand. More than ever, companies will need to identify high-potentials and engage, develop, and grow them. Rarefied talent who can help traditional or “legacy” companies more fully enter the digital age must be attracted, retained, and provided with development programs and the kind of challenges that will keep them inspired.
So what does this talent look like? In addition to technical capabilities—what I call “left-brain skills”—these individuals possess the softer skills that I call “right-brain” leadership. They demonstrate social leadership strengths to motivate and inspire others, while displaying learning agility that allows them to move well beyond what’s familiar or what worked in the past to take on new challenges and first-time situations.
This is not to dismiss or deny the fact that technology is a differentiator in the marketplace—even in a people and organizational strategy business like ours. But too much reliance on technology at the expense of talent will be short-sighted. Even the best AI cannot establish and articulate a vision. It takes people to build, motivate, and lead teams.
In our view, the firms that stand to create the most value and experience the greatest growth in the future will be those that are skilled at both. They have the capabilities to harness the power of the latest technology, while prioritizing investment in and development of the asset that can unlock a $1.2 quadrillion advantage—their people.
One of the odd questions I keep being asked about the iPad is “Where do you plug in USB stuff?” It’s a sister phrase to the weird criticism oft thrust at Apple’s device, “Ah, it’s too limiting for me: I can’t plug in USB sticks.” This is weird because other makers, notably Apple’s biggest competitor, Samsung, follow the same proprietary connector path and because I’ve never once thought about plugging a stick into the iPad. Maybe, soon, most people won’t think like this either–because the USB memory stick is very swiflty about to be obsolete.
To understand why, you’ve only got to look at how ubiquitous they are now. They’re a handful of dollars at your convenience store, novelty designs compete with austere ones, and they’re thrown around like confetti as promos at tradeshows. Any tech that’s got to this level of commodity is due to be banished to the history books. It’s just the way of things.
I jest, but USB memory stick tech hasn’t really advanced ever, even while it’s flourished like crazy to fill a technological need–moving files swiftly and easily between computers, faster and with more convenience than burnable CDs. That’s partly why it’s got so cheap so fast. But this also means that a bunch of other technologies have been advancing, and are about to make the USB stick obsolete.
It’s all about the mobile computing revolution, which has done two very important things: introduced people to the idea of accessing wireless data on the go or anywhere they could imagine and also changed how people think about computer files.
What’s A USB Stick For, Anyway?
USB sticks are useful for two things: Storing files temporarily, and sharing with another computer user. To drop a file on your USB stick you use your computer’s file manager, then you pop it in the new computer and access it.
Dropbox, an app that’s used by 45 million people who upload 1 million files every finve minutes, is at the forefront of revolutionizing this entire idea, and it works wirelessly: To drop something into your Dropbox storage you simply do that … and it’s accessible on any computer you log into anywhere, and also on hordes of mobile devices like iPads, iPhones or their Android, Windows or RIM equivalents. You can even share access to the files you’ve got temporarily stored in your Dropbox with your friends, all with a click of an email.
With free tech like this why would you hunt down your USB stick, fiddle with files, wait while it transfers, disconnect it, stick it into the new device … and so on? Isn’t it easier to drop your data into Dropbox and then access it anywhere and anywhen?
Dropbox is actually part of the cloud computing explosion because when you drop a file into it it’s stored “in the cloud” ready to be accessed anywhere you need. iTunes Match does something similar, as does Spotify: Both are cloudy-tech, using slightly different systems, but both allow you as the end-user to access your files–music ones in this case–wherever you are. The Amazon Kindle tech is similar, because you can access your same book files on the Kindle e-readers or other devices anytime you like and your bookmarks and such are shared among them. In a similar sense apps like Instagram or Facebook or Twitter do the same for your photos and videos, with Flickr and Picasa being overtly for this use: You almost don’t need to “store” photos on your smartphone once you’ve taken them, as long as you upload them to a cloud-ish storage service like these, ready to access them anywhere.
Systems like this are becoming a standard way of accessing many of your most important files on different platforms. Meanwhile apps like Instapaper offer a similar trick for reading online articles later on–instead of having to save that long-form Sunday Times article you found on your desktop PC onto a USB stick so you can read it on your work laptop on a coffee break, you simply pop it into Instapaper and it keeps tabs on the article for you, so you can read it later on your laptop, tablet, or even your smartphone while commuting on the metro.
The Mobile Revolution
That’s the point at which devices like the smartphone or tablet enter the argument because as part of the design of their systems they really do make you think differently about files that you used to think of as “yours.” For example, all the photos you painstakingly load into Facebook on your home PC are instantly accessible via the Facebook app on your phone without you having to do anything, and ones you snap on your phone are instantly reachable at home.
Subtly the smartphone, which means mainly the iPhone, has changed how we all think about using mobile data and mobile Net tech–previously it was rarely accessed, and now we all do it all the time so its price has dropped (and it’s use is poised for a huge growth). These devices also seamlessly connect to Wi-Fi networks and thus are online pretty much all the time…which is absolutely key to enabling the kind of wireless file sharing that Dropbox enables or the wireless streaming that Spotify relies on.
We haven’t even mentioned Google’s rumored “Drive” system yet, either: A system that will carry all of Google’s brand might with it, as well as being seamlessly wound throughout Google’s other offerings, and presumably letting you access your files wherever you like for what maybe zero cost (as long as Google can sell you adverts). Nor have we mentioned iWork, Apple’s cloud-based business productivity suite that lets you work on documents stored in the cloud, or Microsoft’s Office 360 apps which let you do the same.
Basically wireless, mobile, and cloud-based tech are outpacing the humble USB stick faster than an avalanche racing down a mountain.
Daddy, What’s A USB Flash Drive?
That’s not to say USB sticks going to entirely disappear tomorrow. Wireless file-sharing or cloud storage isn’t yet completely flawless or super-accessible, and there are many users who will for a while prefer to use physical media like USB sticks to share data (and users who have to, such as between corporate computers that cannot be connected to networked services for security reasons). USB sticks are also a significant percentage of the business of big firms like SanDisk.
And there are specific super-smart uses of USB sticks that’ll stay around for ages yet–like GigMark’s updatable marketing ones. GigMark’s been in the business since 2008, and has some patented tech that makes the humble USB stick really clever: Their IFD, or interactive flash drive, is similar to a normal one, except it has a bunch of hardware on it that means it phones home when plugged in to see if there’s an update to its content available. It’s designed to launch customer-personalized desktop apps that present the brand in a high-tech way, and it can deliver critical user analytics back to the parent brand so they understand user’s needs more clearly. It’s basically a branded USB stick par excellence.
According to CEO Parker Frost the trick is it lets customers of GigMark tech “get that user-level analytic data without having users log in to websites” at the same time that the IFD itself and its software is “powerful, clever and engaging.” GigMark can even design custom packaging for the stick to match customer uses and the real strength is that if they’re used for storing catalog information, the client can update the catalog for, say, 2012 on all of its pre-distributed IFD sticks and they’ll also work offline–infinitely better, cheaper, and more reliable than printed catalogs.
This tech is supremely innovative, and no doubt is a hugely potent tool for marketing and for some specific use cases.
But we’re still poised to ring the death knell on the USB flash drive. Its use will persist in the same kind of role that GigMark has carved out because the physical drive itself can carry a tactile marketing message in the way an app on your smartphone can’t. But before long all your USB sticks will be gathering dust on your shelf because you’ll have changed how you access data, as well as having more powerful cloud-based alternatives for file transport, and will be used to transparently accessing your files on a host of different platforms. After all, Apple’s already decided that the USB stick’s predecessor, the burnable CD and DVD, are goners…so you’d better start letting go of notions like “I saved my file on my desktop” and “copy it from the stick to your c: drive.”
A notable number of survey respondents are lying on your customer surveys – or not – depending on whom you ask. As some survey data experts and you’ll hear that up to 50 percent of people in any given sample will provide dishonest responses on any given survey. Ask another group of experts and the number drops to “a small minority” of respondents who will either purposely or inadvertently fill your survey with a few mistruths.
While gathering any amount of lies on your survey can be disheartening, there is some good news in the mix. If you know the reasons behind the respondents’ lies, you can more easily recognize and even dissuade them. There are also a few other strategies you can employ to ensure your survey responses are as truthful and accurate as possible.
What Makes Survey Respondents Lie
Your first step is to understand why people lie on surveys, with reasons ranging from innocent forgetfulness to downright maliciousness.
People boast about their behavior
Survey respondents tend to be drawn toward making themselves out better than, more than or somehow superior to others. A case in point comes from a question CBS News asked prior to the 2008 presidential election. The news station wanted to know if survey respondents, and the country, were ready for an African-American president.
Most people who answered said they were more ready than the country was, perhaps showcasing how they were more open-minded, accepting of change and all for equality than the nation as a whole.
Other surveys given to Cornell students back in the 1960s found the students consistently provided higher SAT scores on the surveys than those they actually received.
People become defensive
Survey questions that unwittingly, or even purposely, elicit a defensive response may also be answered by a batch of lies. Here respondents may be unwilling to disclose something about their beliefs or nature they don’t want others to know. Some may even be embarrassed by the question, finding it easier to lie than admit a truth they may find shameful.
Survey questions that ask if people read tabloid newspapers fall into this category. Despite few daring to admit they read the tabloids, tabloid sales are mysteriously yet consistently in the millions every week.
People want to be socially accepted
Similar to becoming defensive, people are prone to lying on surveys when they’re afraid their honest opinion is not necessarily mainstream or politically correct, a concept known as social desirability bias.
An example of this phenomenon arises when Americans are asked if they own guns. A full 50 percent of American families own at least one firearm, but only 25 percent of families will admit it. The 25 percent that are lying would rather tell a mistruth than be demonized for owning a gun.
People are trying to be polite
Perhaps you created a survey asking your customers about your new website design, with the results showing the vast majority really liked it. Or maybe you’ve launched a new software product and want to know if people found it helpful and user-friendly. Again, the majority happened to say yes.
In both cases the responses could be lies, just because people are trying to be polite – or even avoid their own embarrassment. In other words, they are telling the survey sponsors what they think the sponsors want to hear.
In the case of your new web design, regular customers may want to make you feel the enormous effort was worth it, even if the color scheme is garish and navigation options clunky.
In the case of your new software product, people who can’t get it to work may be unwilling to admit it, even if the flaw is with the software instructions or design. They may be more inclined to blame themselves for not being savvy enough to catch on, simply telling you it works just fine so they don’t have to feel stupid.
People don’t want to appear old-fashioned
Most people generally want to appear with it, hip or cool, and that desire can skew your survey results. An example in this category revolves around unisex bathrooms, which were popping up at several college campuses in the 1990s.
A student at Williams College wrote an essay outlining how both male and female students readily agreed to the idea for a freshmen dorm, although they quickly found it awkward and uncomfortable once the unisex bathroom was established.
Students voted to return to the previous separate bathroom arrangement, with most of them noting they had been against the idea from the get-go. They had only agreed so they wouldn’t appear old-fashioned or uncool.
People can be hurried, annoyed or downright mischievous
Survey respondents may also lie because they’re in a hurry, annoyed or are bent on sabotaging the results. Pop-up surveys, such as those that won’t let online viewers read an article until viewers answer a question or three, can be prone to inaccuracies if viewers are in a hurry to simply get to the article. Other surveys that bar someone from getting to a certain web page or resource can be likewise riddled with random answers that double as lies.
And you may also find a few respondents who deliberately falsify their age, gender, race, income, employment status or any other fact. They may be attempting to be funny, or they may simply have the burning desire to do what they can to mess up the results.
People can’t always predict their future actions
Lies may be part of the fabric when it comes to surveys that ask people why they bought a particular product, or if they intend to purchase specific products or engage in specific behaviors in the future. Here people may be telling the honest truth, although what they say may not necessarily match up with their eventual actions, a phenomenon known as hypothetical bias.
An example in this comes from surveys that ask why consumers purchased personal computers. For more than a decade, the majority of respondents listed personal finance management as one of the top three reasons they decided to buy a personal PC. When it comes down to how many consumers actually ended up using a personal finance manager on their computer, the number is somewhere around 2 percent.
Here people honestly want to use their PCs for personal finance management – or any of the other multiple reasons they say swayed their purchase. But once they find out how tedious and time-consuming personal finance management can be, even with a computer, the idea pretty much dies on the vine.
People simply forget
Ask people about a product, service or experience too far after the fact and you may end up with inaccurate responses simply because respondents don’t remember the truth. This came up in a survey that discovered a 40 percent underreporting of single-day hospital stays, with the underreporting due to people honestly forgetting.
How to Minimize Lies and Maximize Accuracy
Knowing why people lie on surveys is your first step toward developing a carefully designed survey that prompts truthful, accurate responses. A number of reasons behind the lies can be addressed head-on, such as:
- Not waiting too long to ask about issues about which people may forget
- Avoiding leading questions that steer people toward the need to be polite, fashionably hip or politically correct
- Eliminating language that would embarrass respondents for telling the truth
- Giving people adequate time to think about their responses without being rushed
Correcting Hypothetical Bias
You can try specific fixes that address hypothetical bias, which refers to respondents incorrectly predicting their future actions, or not doing what they say they will do. One tactic is to ask people how certain they are about their answer.
Those who indicate a high level of uncertainty can have their “yes” answers changed to “no” when you’re tallying results. It can be tough, however, to set a certainty scale across the board, and the strategy only works on straightforward yes and no questions.
Another fix for hypothetical bias is to explain the phenomenon somewhere on the survey, then specifically ask people to do their best to avoid it. This strategy may not work for everyone, and it also poses the risk of introducing a new bias into the survey.
Knowing the Trigger Questions
Questions that are most likely to prompt lying are those that involve the three Bs:
- Behavior
- Beliefs
- Belonging
These triggers were evident in several of the reasons for lying, with people boasting, wanting to appear superior, wanting to fit with mainstream thought or wanting to be part of the in crowd. Pay special attention to any questions involving these three aspects to ensure they are worded precisely and designed to be fool-proof.
One more tip is to realize your respondents are much more likely to tell the truth if they have a connection to your company. Your regular customers are more likely than total strangers to provide honest answers. And no matter how honest you believe the responses to be, always assume you’ll have even a slight level of inaccuracy without further in-depth research to back up and fortify the truth.
이렇게입니다 ㅎㅎ...
The potential is enormous—in the trillions of dollars.
Robotics? Artificial intelligence (AI)? Another breakthrough technology? Actually, it’s people.
An economic analysis commissioned by Korn Ferry found that human capital represents a potential value of $1.2 quadrillion for the global economy—more than twice the value of tangible assets such as technology and real estate. That fact should give CEOs pause for thought—especially those who hold the exact opposite view.
Korn Ferry interviews with 800 leaders of multimillion-dollar global businesses about where they believe growth and value will be generated in the future uncovered responses that are, quite frankly, startling:
- Nearly two-thirds (63%) believe that, in five years, technology will be their firm’s greatest source of competitive advantage.
- More than two-thirds (67%) believe technology will create greater value in the future than people.
- Nearly half (44%) think that robotics, automation, and AI will make people “largely irrelevant” in the future of work.
- When asked to rank what their organization’s top five assets will likely be in five years, the company’s workforce did not even make the list. Instead CEOs named (in order): technology (product, customer channels); R&D/innovation; product/service; brand; and real estate (offices, factories, land).
It’s important to understand where these leaders are coming from. As they noted in the study, technology is becoming central to their thinking and execution—accounting for 40-60% of their priorities when it comes to strategic focus, financial investment, and C-suite time. Another reason for tech-centric thinking among leaders is the fact that 40% of those surveyed said they have experienced shareholder pressure about direct investments in tangible assets such as technology.
Additionally, when we think about the greatest advancements of the last 50 years, technology surely tops the list. Within their lifetimes, many people have witnessed unimaginable breakthroughs, from the advent of space travel to the internet.
But of all the technological changes of the past half-century, nothing can match the greatest asset of any organization: its people. Technology and innovation cannot happen without people. Without talent, there would be no smartphones, no 3-D printer, no AI and machines with the capability to learn.
It sounds counterintuitive, but as the shift occurs to a more technology-enabled society, a company’s talent becomes more important. In particular, the outliers of talent—the “high-potentials” who possess such traits as learning agility and change agility—are going to be in greater demand. More than ever, companies will need to identify high-potentials and engage, develop, and grow them. Rarefied talent who can help traditional or “legacy” companies more fully enter the digital age must be attracted, retained, and provided with development programs and the kind of challenges that will keep them inspired.
So what does this talent look like? In addition to technical capabilities—what I call “left-brain skills”—these individuals possess the softer skills that I call “right-brain” leadership. They demonstrate social leadership strengths to motivate and inspire others, while displaying learning agility that allows them to move well beyond what’s familiar or what worked in the past to take on new challenges and first-time situations.
This is not to dismiss or deny the fact that technology is a differentiator in the marketplace—even in a people and organizational strategy business like ours. But too much reliance on technology at the expense of talent will be short-sighted. Even the best AI cannot establish and articulate a vision. It takes people to build, motivate, and lead teams.
In our view, the firms that stand to create the most value and experience the greatest growth in the future will be those that are skilled at both. They have the capabilities to harness the power of the latest technology, while prioritizing investment in and development of the asset that can unlock a $1.2 quadrillion advantage—their people.
One of the odd questions I keep being asked about the iPad is “Where do you plug in USB stuff?” It’s a sister phrase to the weird criticism oft thrust at Apple’s device, “Ah, it’s too limiting for me: I can’t plug in USB sticks.” This is weird because other makers, notably Apple’s biggest competitor, Samsung, follow the same proprietary connector path and because I’ve never once thought about plugging a stick into the iPad. Maybe, soon, most people won’t think like this either–because the USB memory stick is very swiflty about to be obsolete.
To understand why, you’ve only got to look at how ubiquitous they are now. They’re a handful of dollars at your convenience store, novelty designs compete with austere ones, and they’re thrown around like confetti as promos at tradeshows. Any tech that’s got to this level of commodity is due to be banished to the history books. It’s just the way of things.
I jest, but USB memory stick tech hasn’t really advanced ever, even while it’s flourished like crazy to fill a technological need–moving files swiftly and easily between computers, faster and with more convenience than burnable CDs. That’s partly why it’s got so cheap so fast. But this also means that a bunch of other technologies have been advancing, and are about to make the USB stick obsolete.
It’s all about the mobile computing revolution, which has done two very important things: introduced people to the idea of accessing wireless data on the go or anywhere they could imagine and also changed how people think about computer files.
What’s A USB Stick For, Anyway?
USB sticks are useful for two things: Storing files temporarily, and sharing with another computer user. To drop a file on your USB stick you use your computer’s file manager, then you pop it in the new computer and access it.
Dropbox, an app that’s used by 45 million people who upload 1 million files every finve minutes, is at the forefront of revolutionizing this entire idea, and it works wirelessly: To drop something into your Dropbox storage you simply do that … and it’s accessible on any computer you log into anywhere, and also on hordes of mobile devices like iPads, iPhones or their Android, Windows or RIM equivalents. You can even share access to the files you’ve got temporarily stored in your Dropbox with your friends, all with a click of an email.
With free tech like this why would you hunt down your USB stick, fiddle with files, wait while it transfers, disconnect it, stick it into the new device … and so on? Isn’t it easier to drop your data into Dropbox and then access it anywhere and anywhen?
Dropbox is actually part of the cloud computing explosion because when you drop a file into it it’s stored “in the cloud” ready to be accessed anywhere you need. iTunes Match does something similar, as does Spotify: Both are cloudy-tech, using slightly different systems, but both allow you as the end-user to access your files–music ones in this case–wherever you are. The Amazon Kindle tech is similar, because you can access your same book files on the Kindle e-readers or other devices anytime you like and your bookmarks and such are shared among them. In a similar sense apps like Instagram or Facebook or Twitter do the same for your photos and videos, with Flickr and Picasa being overtly for this use: You almost don’t need to “store” photos on your smartphone once you’ve taken them, as long as you upload them to a cloud-ish storage service like these, ready to access them anywhere.
Systems like this are becoming a standard way of accessing many of your most important files on different platforms. Meanwhile apps like Instapaper offer a similar trick for reading online articles later on–instead of having to save that long-form Sunday Times article you found on your desktop PC onto a USB stick so you can read it on your work laptop on a coffee break, you simply pop it into Instapaper and it keeps tabs on the article for you, so you can read it later on your laptop, tablet, or even your smartphone while commuting on the metro.
The Mobile Revolution
That’s the point at which devices like the smartphone or tablet enter the argument because as part of the design of their systems they really do make you think differently about files that you used to think of as “yours.” For example, all the photos you painstakingly load into Facebook on your home PC are instantly accessible via the Facebook app on your phone without you having to do anything, and ones you snap on your phone are instantly reachable at home.
Subtly the smartphone, which means mainly the iPhone, has changed how we all think about using mobile data and mobile Net tech–previously it was rarely accessed, and now we all do it all the time so its price has dropped (and it’s use is poised for a huge growth). These devices also seamlessly connect to Wi-Fi networks and thus are online pretty much all the time…which is absolutely key to enabling the kind of wireless file sharing that Dropbox enables or the wireless streaming that Spotify relies on.
We haven’t even mentioned Google’s rumored “Drive” system yet, either: A system that will carry all of Google’s brand might with it, as well as being seamlessly wound throughout Google’s other offerings, and presumably letting you access your files wherever you like for what maybe zero cost (as long as Google can sell you adverts). Nor have we mentioned iWork, Apple’s cloud-based business productivity suite that lets you work on documents stored in the cloud, or Microsoft’s Office 360 apps which let you do the same.
Basically wireless, mobile, and cloud-based tech are outpacing the humble USB stick faster than an avalanche racing down a mountain.
Daddy, What’s A USB Flash Drive?
That’s not to say USB sticks going to entirely disappear tomorrow. Wireless file-sharing or cloud storage isn’t yet completely flawless or super-accessible, and there are many users who will for a while prefer to use physical media like USB sticks to share data (and users who have to, such as between corporate computers that cannot be connected to networked services for security reasons). USB sticks are also a significant percentage of the business of big firms like SanDisk.
And there are specific super-smart uses of USB sticks that’ll stay around for ages yet–like GigMark’s updatable marketing ones. GigMark’s been in the business since 2008, and has some patented tech that makes the humble USB stick really clever: Their IFD, or interactive flash drive, is similar to a normal one, except it has a bunch of hardware on it that means it phones home when plugged in to see if there’s an update to its content available. It’s designed to launch customer-personalized desktop apps that present the brand in a high-tech way, and it can deliver critical user analytics back to the parent brand so they understand user’s needs more clearly. It’s basically a branded USB stick par excellence.
According to CEO Parker Frost the trick is it lets customers of GigMark tech “get that user-level analytic data without having users log in to websites” at the same time that the IFD itself and its software is “powerful, clever and engaging.” GigMark can even design custom packaging for the stick to match customer uses and the real strength is that if they’re used for storing catalog information, the client can update the catalog for, say, 2012 on all of its pre-distributed IFD sticks and they’ll also work offline–infinitely better, cheaper, and more reliable than printed catalogs.
This tech is supremely innovative, and no doubt is a hugely potent tool for marketing and for some specific use cases.
But we’re still poised to ring the death knell on the USB flash drive. Its use will persist in the same kind of role that GigMark has carved out because the physical drive itself can carry a tactile marketing message in the way an app on your smartphone can’t. But before long all your USB sticks will be gathering dust on your shelf because you’ll have changed how you access data, as well as having more powerful cloud-based alternatives for file transport, and will be used to transparently accessing your files on a host of different platforms. After all, Apple’s already decided that the USB stick’s predecessor, the burnable CD and DVD, are goners…so you’d better start letting go of notions like “I saved my file on my desktop” and “copy it from the stick to your c: drive.”
A notable number of survey respondents are lying on your customer surveys – or not – depending on whom you ask. As some survey data experts and you’ll hear that up to 50 percent of people in any given sample will provide dishonest responses on any given survey. Ask another group of experts and the number drops to “a small minority” of respondents who will either purposely or inadvertently fill your survey with a few mistruths.
While gathering any amount of lies on your survey can be disheartening, there is some good news in the mix. If you know the reasons behind the respondents’ lies, you can more easily recognize and even dissuade them. There are also a few other strategies you can employ to ensure your survey responses are as truthful and accurate as possible.
What Makes Survey Respondents Lie
Your first step is to understand why people lie on surveys, with reasons ranging from innocent forgetfulness to downright maliciousness.
People boast about their behavior
Survey respondents tend to be drawn toward making themselves out better than, more than or somehow superior to others. A case in point comes from a question CBS News asked prior to the 2008 presidential election. The news station wanted to know if survey respondents, and the country, were ready for an African-American president.
Most people who answered said they were more ready than the country was, perhaps showcasing how they were more open-minded, accepting of change and all for equality than the nation as a whole.
Other surveys given to Cornell students back in the 1960s found the students consistently provided higher SAT scores on the surveys than those they actually received.
People become defensive
Survey questions that unwittingly, or even purposely, elicit a defensive response may also be answered by a batch of lies. Here respondents may be unwilling to disclose something about their beliefs or nature they don’t want others to know. Some may even be embarrassed by the question, finding it easier to lie than admit a truth they may find shameful.
Survey questions that ask if people read tabloid newspapers fall into this category. Despite few daring to admit they read the tabloids, tabloid sales are mysteriously yet consistently in the millions every week.
People want to be socially accepted
Similar to becoming defensive, people are prone to lying on surveys when they’re afraid their honest opinion is not necessarily mainstream or politically correct, a concept known as social desirability bias.
An example of this phenomenon arises when Americans are asked if they own guns. A full 50 percent of American families own at least one firearm, but only 25 percent of families will admit it. The 25 percent that are lying would rather tell a mistruth than be demonized for owning a gun.
People are trying to be polite
Perhaps you created a survey asking your customers about your new website design, with the results showing the vast majority really liked it. Or maybe you’ve launched a new software product and want to know if people found it helpful and user-friendly. Again, the majority happened to say yes.
In both cases the responses could be lies, just because people are trying to be polite – or even avoid their own embarrassment. In other words, they are telling the survey sponsors what they think the sponsors want to hear.
In the case of your new web design, regular customers may want to make you feel the enormous effort was worth it, even if the color scheme is garish and navigation options clunky.
In the case of your new software product, people who can’t get it to work may be unwilling to admit it, even if the flaw is with the software instructions or design. They may be more inclined to blame themselves for not being savvy enough to catch on, simply telling you it works just fine so they don’t have to feel stupid.
People don’t want to appear old-fashioned
Most people generally want to appear with it, hip or cool, and that desire can skew your survey results. An example in this category revolves around unisex bathrooms, which were popping up at several college campuses in the 1990s.
A student at Williams College wrote an essay outlining how both male and female students readily agreed to the idea for a freshmen dorm, although they quickly found it awkward and uncomfortable once the unisex bathroom was established.
Students voted to return to the previous separate bathroom arrangement, with most of them noting they had been against the idea from the get-go. They had only agreed so they wouldn’t appear old-fashioned or uncool.
People can be hurried, annoyed or downright mischievous
Survey respondents may also lie because they’re in a hurry, annoyed or are bent on sabotaging the results. Pop-up surveys, such as those that won’t let online viewers read an article until viewers answer a question or three, can be prone to inaccuracies if viewers are in a hurry to simply get to the article. Other surveys that bar someone from getting to a certain web page or resource can be likewise riddled with random answers that double as lies.
And you may also find a few respondents who deliberately falsify their age, gender, race, income, employment status or any other fact. They may be attempting to be funny, or they may simply have the burning desire to do what they can to mess up the results.
People can’t always predict their future actions
Lies may be part of the fabric when it comes to surveys that ask people why they bought a particular product, or if they intend to purchase specific products or engage in specific behaviors in the future. Here people may be telling the honest truth, although what they say may not necessarily match up with their eventual actions, a phenomenon known as hypothetical bias.
An example in this comes from surveys that ask why consumers purchased personal computers. For more than a decade, the majority of respondents listed personal finance management as one of the top three reasons they decided to buy a personal PC. When it comes down to how many consumers actually ended up using a personal finance manager on their computer, the number is somewhere around 2 percent.
Here people honestly want to use their PCs for personal finance management – or any of the other multiple reasons they say swayed their purchase. But once they find out how tedious and time-consuming personal finance management can be, even with a computer, the idea pretty much dies on the vine.
People simply forget
Ask people about a product, service or experience too far after the fact and you may end up with inaccurate responses simply because respondents don’t remember the truth. This came up in a survey that discovered a 40 percent underreporting of single-day hospital stays, with the underreporting due to people honestly forgetting.
How to Minimize Lies and Maximize Accuracy
Knowing why people lie on surveys is your first step toward developing a carefully designed survey that prompts truthful, accurate responses. A number of reasons behind the lies can be addressed head-on, such as:
- Not waiting too long to ask about issues about which people may forget
- Avoiding leading questions that steer people toward the need to be polite, fashionably hip or politically correct
- Eliminating language that would embarrass respondents for telling the truth
- Giving people adequate time to think about their responses without being rushed
Correcting Hypothetical Bias
You can try specific fixes that address hypothetical bias, which refers to respondents incorrectly predicting their future actions, or not doing what they say they will do. One tactic is to ask people how certain they are about their answer.
Those who indicate a high level of uncertainty can have their “yes” answers changed to “no” when you’re tallying results. It can be tough, however, to set a certainty scale across the board, and the strategy only works on straightforward yes and no questions.
Another fix for hypothetical bias is to explain the phenomenon somewhere on the survey, then specifically ask people to do their best to avoid it. This strategy may not work for everyone, and it also poses the risk of introducing a new bias into the survey.
Knowing the Trigger Questions
Questions that are most likely to prompt lying are those that involve the three Bs:
- Behavior
- Beliefs
- Belonging
These triggers were evident in several of the reasons for lying, with people boasting, wanting to appear superior, wanting to fit with mainstream thought or wanting to be part of the in crowd. Pay special attention to any questions involving these three aspects to ensure they are worded precisely and designed to be fool-proof.
One more tip is to realize your respondents are much more likely to tell the truth if they have a connection to your company. Your regular customers are more likely than total strangers to provide honest answers. And no matter how honest you believe the responses to be, always assume you’ll have even a slight level of inaccuracy without further in-depth research to back up and fortify the truth.
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