How Bias Can Cloud Your Understanding of Client Needs

Accurately understanding client needs is key to the success of any A/E project. That's stating the obvious. What's not so obvious is how our own biases can interfere with the process of uncovering those needs. Typically, this problem is not severe enough to prevent us from delivering an appropriate technical solution. But it often hinders us from aligning our perspective of the project with the client's, and perhaps offering an even better solution.

This dynamic is illustrated in the graphic below. The A/E professional is prone to seeing the project as a technical problem requiring a technical solution, as well as the requisite expertise. The client, on the other hand, is inclined to see the project as a technical problem that impacts their business, requiring an integrated solution (of which our solution is a part) that enables specific business outcomes.

Does this really matter? The default outcomes resulting from our technical solutions generally get the job done—the client usually achieves the desired business goals. But the disconnect between our solutions and the client's outcomes robs our work of its full potential value. That's because business solutions are more valuable than technical solutions. Ideally, we should see ourselves as business problem solvers with a technical focus.

Clients don't really buy technical solutions; they buy what those solutions do for their business. As a business development professional and proposal manager for many years, I learned to focus our value proposition on business outcomes rather than just selling technical services or solutions. That gave us a significant competitive advantage, and led to better-conceived projects after contract award.

Yet technical professionals often struggle with making this shift in focus, even those who are earnestly trying to. It's hard to shake the natural bias toward looking at things through the lens of one's professional expertise. The breakthrough comes in mastering your skill at inquiry.

Inquiry — asking questions to uncover information and gain understanding. 'Expansive inquiry' goes further, asking questions that broaden our perspective, venturing outside our usual frame of reference to explore the issues that matter most to clients.

One way to think of inquiry is asking questions that facilitate the transfer of information from the client's head to your head. The goal is to align your perspective with the client's—to the degree possible—so that you can see the project much as the client sees it (referencing the first diagram above).

Sounds simple enough. But here's where bias often enters the picture. Rather than asking questions that allow you to peer into the client's mind, a common error is to ask questions that reveal more about what's in your mind. In other words, usually without realizing it, your questions can reflect more of what you know, what you're interested in, what your viewpoint is, even what your needs are (e.g., to win the job or to offer a solution you're experienced with).

The client often responds in kind, answering the questions as you are steering them, which leads to addressing the issues that matter most to you rather than to the client. Despite your intent to uncover the client's perspective, the responses you receive are more aligned with your perspective. Bias shapes the inquiry without your even realizing it.

This is often how we end up thinking the client is more interested in technical matters than business matters, based on how he or she answered our questions. But the fact is, our questions didn't seek to explore business issues at any length, because that's not where our expertise lies. And it may not be a topic that we're comfortable discussing in depth.

Biased inquiry can lead us to mostly confirming what we already thought we knew or wanted to believe, rather than uncovering what we don't know. Often without intending to, we find ourselves asking questions that keep us within our comfort zone. Here are a few common types of bias that infect our inquiry:

Confirmation bias. The tendency to notice, focus on, or give greater credence to evidence that fits our existing beliefs. This affects not only the questions we ask, but what we hear in the answers. Perhaps you favor a particular solution, which leads to asking questions that lean in that direction. Then you give particular notice to the few responses that suggest the client agrees with you, unconsciously filtering out those comments that suggest otherwise.

Familiarity bias. A preference for asking questions (or offering advice) that relate to the subject matter you know best. That's why technical professionals often don't explore in any depth issues pertaining to the client's desired business outcomes or personal service preferences. It's also a key reason that efforts to cross sell usually fail, because it would involve asking clients about topics we're not that familiar with.

Validity bias. Defined as the tendency to be overconfident in the accuracy of one's judgment or interpretations about a given situation. This bias can lead you to avoid asking clarifying questions that might reveal mistaken conclusions or assumptions. But in fact, wrong assumptions are one of the most common mistakes that we make with clients, particularly related to the nontechnical dimensions of a project (such as the client's service preferences).

Anchoring bias. The tendency to give too much weight to first impressions or the first information we receive on a matter. Early information may become a default reference point by which all subsequent information is perceived. For example, imagine the client requests a feasibility study of a particular solution. Your questions understandably focus on the scope of that study, especially since that is something your firm is very experienced with. But a broader inquiry might have revealed that the study (or the solution itself) was not the best approach to addressing the client's underlying needs.

Do you see a common thread among these different types of bias? They all involve shortchanging the inquiry in some fashion, usually because our questions emerge from our perspective rather than probing the client's perspective. If you're not careful, you can find yourself in the role of the proverbial hammer in search of a nail.

Of course, we'd like to think this isn't true. But I've spent too many years in this business to ignore the reality—yes, even really smart people are prone to bias that can prevent them from providing the very best help to their clients. So how can you limit the bias that so often creeps into our investigation of client needs? A few suggestions:

Supplement client conversations with online research. In fact, I recommend you do some research before talking to the client. It provides you with valuable context for deciding what questions to ask and how to interpret the responses. As for sources, you obviously want to start with their website. Then look for annual reports, facility master plans, capital improvement plans, regulatory notices, news reports, and general information about the client's industry. I also usually look for information on the particular people I'll be dealing with, starting with their LinkedIn profiles.

Identify information gaps and plan questions to fill them. Don't settle for meeting with the client and asking questions on the fly. I did that for many years as a business development professional and was reasonably successful at it. Then someone challenged me to plan my sales conversations. What a big difference that made! It enabled me to make the transition from being good at sales conversation to becoming skillful at client inquiry (there's a difference!). I made a quantum leap in my understanding of client needs and expectations.

Seek input from colleagues who think differently. As noted above in the descriptions of different types of bias, the challenge in effective inquiry is stepping outside our personal frame of reference. Once you've prepared a list of questions you want to ask the client, it's wise to seek input from coworkers (perhaps other members of the project team) who can offer a different take on what you should be asking. It shouldn't require much of your time to get some helpful suggestions.

Take another colleague along to meet with the client. This provides not only a different perspective to contribute to the inquiry, but another set of ears and eyes to interpret what the client is telling you, both verbally and nonverbally. Be sure to compare notes soon after the meeting is over.

Seek to involve other client contacts. Bias works in both directions. We often misjudge client intentions because our primary contact told us something that didn't correspond with what others in the organization thought or wanted. For this reason, it's always a good idea to seek an audience with other client representatives who will be working with you or will be evaluating your work. The best arrangement is usually to meet with them together, so you can bring any differences to the surface and hopefully get them resolved (or at least have the group acknowledge them).

Explore client needs at three levels—strategic, technical, people. This is a framework I've used for many years, helping A/E professionals look beyond their normal technical focus to recognize critical nontechnical aspects of a project. Strategic needs relate to the overall success of the client organization. It's the business realm I referenced above, which typically drives the need for our services. These needs may apply to financial, operational, regulatory, competitive, or political issues, among others. Be sure to spend an appropriate amount of time uncovering these strategic drivers.

People needs acknowledge the human dimension of the client organization and outside stakeholders. Ultimately, all problems that we seek to solve involve human beneficiaries and are experienced in both tangible and intangible ways. Uncovering people needs delves into things such as personal win-results, preferences, and emotions such as concern, dissatisfaction, fear, ambition, hope, and fulfillment. Don't overlook these as part of your needs assessment!

Beware of leading questions. As noted above, most of us have a natural bent toward guiding conversations in our direction. We want to be able to show our expertise on a particular topic. Or draw on our experience in providing a certain type of solution. But what we know or do best doesn't always align with what the client needs most. You need to keep the inquiry focused on the client.

That doesn't mean you don't fulfill your role as a consultant, offering different ideas and advice as appropriate. You don't want to simply be an order taker! Admittedly, it can be tough to balance being both an effective advisor and an unbiased problem solver. The best approach to achieving that balance is to try to put yourself in the client's shoes. Which leads to my last tip...

Cultivate your empathy. Thankfully, there is a growing movement in business to recognize the crucial role of empathy in serving customers. This is the ability to see and feel things from another's perspective. Empathy, or the lack thereof, is at the root of the problem of biased inquiry. In large part, bias is the taint of our own self-interest. We superimpose our perspective on others, which often leads to misunderstanding and conflict.

Doing justice to the topic of empathy is beyond the scope of this article. But let me offer one suggestion that I've found helpful: Practice extrospection in at least select conversations. This involves putting the focus on the other party—asking questions, listening intently, and talking about yourself or your interests only as requested. By "practice," I mean you're doing this to develop a valuable skill.

As you're able to increasingly remove self-interest from your conversations, you're better equipped to conduct effective client inquiries. And that additional measure of insight into what your clients really want and need is going to pay off for both parties.