1. Be attentive
Whether it is a researcher or a leading cadre, what is needed for investigation and study is to understand the actual situation and solve specific problems. So how do you understand the actual situation and solve specific problems? It's just the heart. The so-called intention is to deal with grassroots cadres and the masses and make friends with them. We are in an equal relationship, so we don't have to worry about not getting this kind of real information.
Our team is basically in a state of "dusty and non-stop", either in the research or on the way to the research. However, many of our academic colleagues, leading cadres, and even journalists feel that the investigation is becoming more and more difficult. This is because the grassroots do not welcome it, and the cadres and the masses do not tell the truth. But we've hardly ever had this kind of unreachable, unwelcome trouble.
People often ask me, why is it so easy for you to go down every time? I thought about it for a while, and one of the most important factors was to be willing to be a primary school student. Scholars go down to investigate, they don't have much resources, they don't have much power, they can't bring any benefits to others, and they don't have the right to get people to cooperate. But we are a learner mentality, and the grassroots welcome these "learners".
The grassroots hope that scholars, journalists, and leaders will understand the real situation, and this is a real voice. However, the grassroots fear that after reflecting the real situation, they will be treated as a negative target and held accountable. Therefore, the grassroots dare not say it. If we go out to investigate with a learning mentality and an equal heart, if we only objectively present the actual situation, analyze problems modestly, and regard investigation and research as a scientific activity, and treat things and people not well, there will be no problem of being unwilling to talk about them.
I have done fieldwork for so many years, and the greatest sense of achievement does not come from how many theoretical achievements have been produced and how much social impact has been produced, but from the trust of many grassroots cadres and masses. Every time I go to a place for research, I will make a lot of friends from all walks of life at the grassroots level, and I often have friends who are engaged in front-line work to communicate with me. So, my own daily life has also become a field, and I am used to observing, discussing, thinking and writing in my daily life.
As long as we practice and persevere, we will inevitably gain the trust of the grassroots. If there is a difficulty in the first investigation, the second or third time will be carried out, and as long as it is successful once and demonstrated once, everyone's trust will increase once. In the end, everyone found that this person is still very pragmatic and reliable. In this way, we will be able to tell the truth, and the information we will obtain will become richer and more layered, and our investigation and research work will be more down-to-earth.
However, no one wants to play falsehood in all the investigation and research that has been done with our hearts, otherwise, we ourselves will not be able to bear it, and the masses will be even more disgusted. As long as we are really doing research and accumulating for a long time, we will form a very good reputation. This reputation, for scholars, is academic reputation; For **, it is the official voice; For journalists, it's credibility.
Therefore, it is not particularly difficult to investigate with your heart, investigate with an equal heart, and cherish your reputation, and you will form a positive cycle.
2. In person
How to solve this problem of formalism and bureaucracy in investigation and research? I think the key is to "personally".
When I read the articles of leading cadres at all levels, I was deeply moved. However, everything that is lively and thoughtful is basically written by the leading cadres themselves, and no matter how bad they are, they are sorted out by their speeches. But all the eight-strand essays, which pay attention to rhetoric, pretend, and a bunch of big words but have no content, are basically the "masterpieces" of the secretary. The leaders can only read the scripts in the meeting, and they can no longer hear people's words. Journalists report that they don't dare to write what they want to write, so they will only paste and copy the press releases prepared by others. When scholars write articles, they are all academic strands, or they are translators of policy reports. All these things are lacking in "personally", and he does not dare to talk about it.
Whether it is a leading cadre, a journalist or a scholar, if we want to know about a certain matter, it is best not to ask others to do it, secretaries, interns and students are only auxiliary roles, and we have to personally investigate, study, and write reports ourselves. This kind of thing is easier said than done. For example, the trend of investigation and research has been greatly promoted, and as a result, many problems of formalism have emerged, and investigation and research have become a source of disturbance to the people and a toss of the grassroots. Many leading cadres naturally regard investigation and study as a task and naturally assign it to their subordinates. As a result, several ways of investigating have emerged:
The first is the investigation and research of the dumping pot. The most frightening thing is that before the investigation and research has begun, the outline of the report has been listed, the first-level heading, the second-level heading, the first-level heading, and the fourth-level heading have all been written, and even the number of words, how many cases and data should be required for each part. The outline is sent to the grassroots level, and the content is filled in and it is over.
Dumping the pot type of investigation, there is neither investigation nor research, it is simply playing with words under the banner of investigation and research. The higher levels only do the work of integrating words, and the grassroots only passively provide information, with results, but without process, and the leaders do not even meet with the grassroots level.
In fact, the most important thing in research research is precisely the process of face-to-face communication between the investigator and the respondent. In this process, the close exchange of information between the investigator and the respondent, the same phenomenon, the same data and information, from the perspective of the superiors, and from the perspective of the grassroots, will have different interpretations. Therefore, the key to research is not in the data, but in the point of view, in the understanding of the data.
The second is to assign task-based investigations. Leading cadres have led a project, vigorously organized a research group, themselves as the team leader, the secondary leader as the deputy leader, and the staff members and the "pen sticks" of the subordinate units have become members of the research group. In the end, I found that it was those soldiers who really worked.
One of the functions of Daxing investigation and study is to educate leading cadres, so that in the process of investigation and study, they will have contact with the grassroots and the masses, be grounded, have a sense of reverence for the power they hold, and make more scientific decisions. However, if the leading cadres change from investigators to commanders of investigations, they will have counterfunctions.
The third is commissioned investigation. The proliferation of "third parties" has become an important source of formalism and bureaucracy at the grassroots level. In the academic world, the hosts of many scientific research projects have become "bosses", and many elementary school scholars have become academic migrant workers. Many ** are also keen to package experience for all levels, and have become cultural media companies or think tanks, objective investigative reporting does not exist, and it is true to use layout and propaganda positions to make money. Many ** departments also buy the so-called think tank results through ** purchase of services.
Many public services are suitable for purchase, such as municipal operations. But most public services, especially those related to mass services and grassroots governance, are not suitable for outsourcing. After all, the governance process is not only a service process, but also a political process. Specific to investigation and research, with the help of the "external brain" is a beautiful technique, if you have no brain, you will be led astray by the "external brain". Investigation and research is actually the only way to make leading cadres smart, down-to-earth and judgmental.
3. Let people speak
Investigation and research should encourage a hundred schools of thought to bloom and a hundred schools of thought to contend. What does that mean?
Today, we face a huge challenge, with a high degree of homogeneity and more and more invalid information that we are exposed to every day. The report of the agency**, the eight strands of literature are prevalent, the same, and there is little information content. Since the ** group of demons are dancing, it is all the interference of invalid information. Academic research reports are also prevalent in Baguwen, but all opinions and discoveries must be smoothed as much as possible, for fear of being caught by others and failing the external review. **The department's investigation report is stable, and I am afraid of writing a wrong sentence, and then I will offend a certain leader, offend a certain department, and I am afraid of being burned.
Before the survey had even begun, I was thinking about the impact of the report. In the end, we found that we spent a lot of time and energy to investigate, learned a lot about the reality of the grassroots level, and came into contact with many contradictions, but these actual situations and specific contradictions were not reflected in the investigation report. The investigation report has buried a lot of foreshadowing, and if you don't look carefully, you don't know it, and everyone else understands the situation when you discuss it. Everyone is avoiding contradictions and problems, why is it?
I think this is mainly because the people who write the investigation report have too much ideological baggage, and they are afraid that what they write will bring trouble to themselves. I'm often asked if the article I wrote caused trouble. I said no, never. It is true that there will be dissatisfaction with the criticism of some articles, but they never look for trouble and understand each other afterwards. Isn't the most desirable result of our investigation and research to attract the attention of the relevant parties and thus promote the solution of the problem? If it's just for your own amusement, there's really no need to waste time and energy on research.
At present, there is room for a hundred schools of thought to bloom and a hundred schools of thought to contend. The premise is that we are doing real investigations, doing real research, and expressing our views for the sake of social progress and the prosperity of the country and the nation. The original intention of vigorously promoting investigation and study is itself an expression of our party's ideological line of seeking truth from facts, and its original intention is to form a united, intense, serious, and lively democratic atmosphere within the party in which there are full and equal exchanges between the higher and lower levels and between the cadres and the masses.
The most important thing in investigation and research is to let people speak, let the investigator understand the situation realistically, and the respondent can report the situation realistically. Investigation and research is first and foremost a scientific activity, and it is not enough to have too much political correctness -- it is not enough to talk only about viewpoints and positions, but without concrete analysis of specific problems.
In some investigations, as soon as they come into contact with specific contradictions, they avoid them, cover them with big words, be cautious, and only talk about the good and not the bad, or only talk about a little contradiction and problem incidentally. Only investigate, not study; Only research, not problem-solving; Even if it is to solve the problem, it is frivolous, and it is not enough to solve the small problems.