Kyle gets passionate about the Tories

How pushing on an open door gives people the opportunity to share their views

Recently we chatted to Kyle. Kyle is in his early 30s, and lives in Hebburn in Newcastle.

We had a wide ranging chat with him, and observed him in his home doing a few things in the kitchen and chatting us through some of his personal items.

When you have a chat based on the ‘Reality First, Brand Second’ approach, you invariably end up talking about a whole bunch of things.

The first few minutes when you arrive may be a little scripted as you’re sitting down, going through the contracts and then starting a conversation with a stranger.

But a few minutes in and things tend to warm up and you start to understand a little about what they want to talk about, and what they want to show you in and around their homes.

Kyle was chatting happily about his life - about his profession (he’s a Marine Biologist) and his passion (he’s a budding Comedian) amongst other things.

For the first 22 minutes I’m starting to get a glimpse into his life, and the areas he wants to share… he talks about his comedy lots and I want to learn a little about his profession too… so this exchange happens…

Up until that point, politics hadn’t been mentioned at all, yet here you can hear Kyle getting pretty passionate about the Conservatives - and it was him who introduced them into the conversation:

“[In my comedy] I… always stay away from... politics. Unless it's slagging off the Tories and I'm fucking… in there”

As a researcher: That’s the door. An unprompted passionate comment about something different to the area you were discussing.

So we continue to chat around his home, we observe some of his behaviours, and when a relevant ‘conversation door’ opens 42 minutes later… all I have to do is push on that door and you get to the core of people’s passions.

This next clip is Kyle sharing his thoughts about the Tories and he’s in full flow.

Notice how little I have to say - he keeps going because it’s something that he is very passionate about.

At this point it’s worth saying Kyle wasn’t recruited with any knowledge of his political views or beliefs. It wasn’t something we talked about in the screener at all.

I’ve mentioned in some of the training sessions we run for Planners, that I’m having to rewire my brain somewhat. How, as a Planner I was taught to say something - anything - in meetings to prove my worth. But now as a researcher I’m learning to keep quiet and let people speak.

… and I’m also learning that when you hear an unprompted passionate comment like that, it’s an open door waiting to be pushed on. You just need to push on it at the right time.