Listening  for the second ring:

“A respondent gives you a fact, but the insight is almost always in the ring around it.” 

It’s an idea that’s shaped Liz Morse’s approach to research over the last decade. 

When Liz joined The Link Group in 2016 as an Associate Project Manager, she wasn’t following a carefully mapped career plan. She had studied journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she wrote for ‘The Daily Tar Heel’ and discovered she loved asking questions, uncovering what mattered, and telling stories people connected with. 

Market research turned out to be a natural fit. “We are still uncovering truth and bringing insights to life,” Liz says. “So, while my career looks different than what I imagined in college, I’m still doing what I love every single day. I’m telling stories.” 

10 years and five promotions later, that curiosity still sits at the center of her work. 

Listening for the second ring 

The idea comes from *You’re Not Listening* by Kate Murphy. In the book, an FBI hostage negotiator describes every story as having two rings: the facts in the center and the feelings surrounding them. The feelings are often where the real insight lives. 

That perspective changed the way Liz moderates. 

She remembers a patient interview from early in her career with a woman living with severe psoriatic arthritis. Throughout the conversation, the woman kept mentioning that her teenage son had started cooking dinner because her joints hurt too much to stand at the stove. 

The fact was straightforward. Her condition had made cooking difficult. But as Liz continued asking questions, something deeper emerged. The woman wasn’t just frustrated by the physical limitations of her disease. She felt tremendous guilt that her son had quietly stepped into a caregiving role. The emotional weight of that shift mattered just as much as the symptoms themselves. 

“It’s easy to focus on the answer that’s right in front of you,” Liz says. “The harder, and often more valuable, work is staying curious long enough to understand what’s underneath.” 

Helping others grow 

One of the biggest turning points in Liz’s career didn’t come with a new title. It came when she took ownership of TLG’s Learning & Development program.  

Earlier in her career, Liz was focused on building her own skills. Today, she’s just as passionate about helping others build theirs. 

Having grown through nearly every stage of a research career herself, she recognizes the moments when someone needs encouragement, a stretch opportunity, or simply the confidence to try something unfamiliar. 

Her advice to the researchers she mentors is simple: “Go be bad at something you actually want to be great at.” 

For Liz, that meant strengthening her strategic thinking, improving her slide design, and learning to look beyond the stated research objective to uncover the business question underneath. While the instincts were there, honing those skills took real practice. Progress came from being willing to be imperfect and learn along the way. 

Learning to trust the pivot 

Early in her career, Liz was managing a project for a major beauty client with in-person focus groups in New York. She had carefully planned every detail of the discussion guide. Then, halfway through the session, a client executive wanted to change direction. 

“I remember thinking, ‘How is she not losing her mind right now? I could never do that,'” Liz says, recalling how calmly the project lead simply replied, “Great, let’s pivot.” 

That moment stayed with her. 

At the time, it felt like chaos. But looking back a decade later, the wisdom of that moment finally clicked. 

Liz still color-codes her task lists and keeps her calendars running with impressive precision. Planning is still part of who she is. The difference is that ten years of experience taught her what she couldn’t see back then: never confuse the plan with the purpose. 

“Once I finally learned that a blown-up discussion guide stopped feeling like a crisis,” she says, “and turned into an opportunity to learn something I never could have planned for.” 

10 years of curiosity 

Liz doesn’t define her career by promotions or titles. She thinks about the conversations that uncovered something unexpected. The researchers she’s had the chance to mentor. And the clients she’s helped build stronger, more authentic connections to their customers. 

Her responsibilities have grown, but the instinct that first drew her from journalism into market research remains the same. Never stop looking beyond the facts for the story that’s waiting in the second ring.