At first glance, John Russonello and I shared little in common: I’m from the smalltown West; he was of the urban East Coast. He loved baseball; I like backpacking. He flew on airlines everywhere, while often I caught up after driving my pickup to our next research gig in Coeur d’Alene, Billings, Grand Junction or Reno.
While I’ve been blessed with mentors, few have influenced my professional life and outlook more than John. Here’s why: he taught me to listen.
“I am surprised by people every day,” John once told me. “That’s what keeps this interesting.”
John was an anomaly, a DC Beltway consultant who urged people to rely less on Beltway consultants. He was a researcher, speechwriter, strategist. John died this week after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He is survived by his wife and professional partner, Nancy Belden, and their son Gio.
Some public opinion researchers seem to seek magic words they can sprinkle on messages to somehow spin an audience into agreeing with them. But John was not interested in shortcuts. He was there to listen, not to rebut but to understand.
I learned most from John’s focus groups, listening like the proverbial fly on the wall while everyday folks hashed out critical issues facing their communities.
Sure, telephone or online polls may have been cheaper and more statistically reliable ways to find out what people think, but nothing compares with sitting face to face with people, watching both their words and their bodies, to understand how they think.
“Policies rise and fall on two things,” Russonello taught me. “The public’s core values and its appetite for change.”
Russonello taught me that the goal of good public opinion research is to find out what makes people tick – not just finding hot buttons that might make them click. He always sought to drill into his audiences’ thinking, to find their core values, the bedrock upon which their opinions stand. Understand core values, he said, and you have a bridge to people who may not think they agree with you.
Out West where I live, folks are pretty much sick of change. They like things the way they were or as they are. But those core values – freedom, responsibility, fairness, integrity, work and spirituality. Listen carefully, and you’ll find things we all share. That’s where success begins.
