Why it is important to know what the ordinary man thinks

IT is one of the ironies of corporate life that the higher we climb, the less connected we are to the ordinary people.

Yet if you run a company that sells goods or services to the general public, it is crucial to know what the people want and how they think.

So we engage marketing consultants and survey firms to give us the necessary data, for a huge fee, of course.

And then we make adjustments on our products, our marketing strategies and our promotions because that is what “the people” want.

When I first started as a cadet reporter in the now defunct National Echo, we had a column called Street Poll where the most junior reporters were sent out into the streets to ask the people what they thought about a particular issue.

I enjoyed doing that because it involved a face-to-face encounter with a whole range of people and they could be nasty or nice depending on the questions posed.

These days, we prefer soliciting feedback via SMS, email or comments in the various social media networks.

While they are effective to a certain extent, there are limitations because we are reaching out to a niche audience who may not be the people we really want to survey.

We know decisions are made, or unmade, because there are people who know how to use the right channels to convey the necessary feedback.

Whether they truly represent the voice of the majority or are simply a well-connected minority, they are the ones who matter. This happens often in the political realm.

So where does the ordinary people fit in? To use a bird analogy, how can the eagle know what the sparrow really wants?

Let me share something which I wrote some time back.

Most people see sparrows as very ordinary birds. They would exclaim at a parrot, a hornbill or an eagle, but very few people go ga-ga over a humble sparrow.

The sparrow may be ordinary and plentiful, devoid of exotic plumage and a sweet melodious voice, but aren’t we all surrounded by sparrows in our day-to-day existence? But we do forget the sparrows in our lives, don’t we?

Sometimes we pine for the elusive peregrine falcon, the swiftest bird in the world, and forget the many humble sparrows before our very eyes.

We yearn for things beyond our reach and forget to reach out to those in our immediate vicinity.

We worship those with power and prestige, willing to spend time and money in pursuit of this small group, yet unwilling to listen to the mass chirping of the masses.

Perhaps eagles need to realise that for them to really understand the sparrows, they have to fly down from the lofty mountains and stay closer to the ground.

In business or in politics, failure to know what the ordinary birds think or feel can have consequences. Think about that.


Deputy executive editor Soo Ewe Jin believes that listening to ordinary people can yield extraordinary insights.

Mondy Starters - By Soo Ewe Jin