The Better Research Approach
Curious enough to keep looking. Experienced enough to know what matters.
Good research is about knowing when to follow something unexpected. Knowing when there's more underneath an answer. Seeing connections across dozens of conversations. And being able to distinguish an interesting observation from an insight that actually matters
Our approach combines curiosity, empathy and research craft with years of experience understanding people and helping organisations act on what we learn.
Listen
Create the kind of conversations where people tell us what's really going on.
Understand
Look beneath individual responses to identify the deeper needs, tensions, motivations and patterns.
Make sense
Turn complexity into a clear story about what matters and why.
Act
Translate that understanding into practical implications, opportunities and strategic direction.
Adam Durant
Researcher. Listener.
I've spent more than 15 years talking to people for a living.
Thousands of conversations about the things people buy, believe, struggle with, value, avoid, hope for and sometimes find difficult to put into words.
And I've learned that the most useful insight rarely comes from simply asking a question and recording the answer.
It comes from listening carefully enough to notice what's underneath it.
Before starting Better Research, I worked in senior roles within some of New Zealand's leading commercial and public-sector research agencies.
Since then I've led research across a wide range of sectors and some complex subjects — working with businesses, government organisations, communities and not-for-profits.
I'm a multi-award-winning researcher, but the part of the work I've always cared about most is the same: understanding people.
My strength as a researcher is building rapport quickly and creating conversations where people feel comfortable being honest.
That matters because what people initially tell you isn't always the whole story.
Sometimes the useful insight appears in an aside. A contradiction. Something someone struggles to explain. Or a pattern that only becomes apparent after you've listened to twenty different people describe the same problem in twenty different ways.
I bring together the stories, patterns and evidence and turn them into a clear narrative — one that helps stakeholders understand not only what we've learned, but what it means for them.
That might lead to a new strategy, a different customer experience, stronger communications, a behaviour-change programme or simply a much clearer understanding of the problem you're trying to solve.
If there's one thing I want people to leave a Better Research project with, it's this:
“We understand this differently now.”
And from there:
“We know now what we need to do.”