So you want to be transparent? Think carefully. Here’s a story for you.
You are a VP of Administration for a mid-size organization, with oversight of a collection of internal support departments (Finance, HR, Procurement, etc.). You have about 100 or so folks in your empire. Six months or so ago you conducted the standard annual online employee satisfaction survey, and while the results for your division were decent, the response rate of only 35% was troubling.
So you have an idea, at the next ‘all staff’ meeting, instead of another boring recitation of the survey results with charts, year over year comparisons, ‘Look we are up 8% in ‘I have access to all the tools I need to perform my job duties’, and your spin that you had months to prepare, you will try something completely new and unusual.
In the (infamous) words of Bill O’Reilly - F%$# it! We’ll do it live!
Since just about all of the 100 people in the division will be together, why not re-take the survey, at least some of the most important questions, ‘live’; using a cool audience response technology like they used on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’. Simple really, project each survey question up on the screen, wait for all the employees to register their answers, then show the results in real-time. Guaranteed 100% response rate. And no time for analysis, interpretation, rationalization, or management spin. Totally open and transparent. That is the new corporate buzzword right, transparent? Grade-A idea.
You make sure everyone has a clicker so you can get started, hell, this is going to be fun!
It goes something like this:
First question – ‘I have the opportunity to improve my professional knowledge and skills‘
‘The votes are coming in, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, ok that is everyone I think. Ok, voting is closed, let’s see the results’
35% ‘Disagree’ or ‘Strongly Disagree’ and 22% ‘Neutral’.
‘That does not sound good. Hmm. Curious. I am a bit surprised at that. Well, let’s move on.’
Second question – ‘I have the opportunity to give input on decisions that affect my work environment’
Votes roll in…
41% ‘Disagree’ or ‘Strongly Disagree’ and 24% ‘Neutral’. ‘
‘Gee, that is quite a bit worse than the results from the survey in January. Well, there are a number of factors that could affect that, new leadership, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let’s try one more question and then we can move on to Mary Jane’s 20th service anniversary cake.’
Third question – ‘My manager encourages and supports my career growth‘
Votes come in (much faster for this one)….
42% ‘Disagree’ or ‘Strongly Disagree’ and 26% ‘Neutral’.
‘Wow. Really? Why do so many people feel that way? I really am interested.’
A hand gets raised in the audience.
‘What’s that? A question from the group? Go ahead Clyde.’
Clyde the Shipping Clerk - ’Don’t let the department managers vote, they are skewing the results to make things look better. Let’s have a do-over on that one and just have the line staff vote to see what the effects are.’
By this point things have already unraveled to the point that you can’t figure a way to put a stop to this and orchestrate a semi-graceful exit. So you agree to the do-over, this time instructing the 10 or so managers in the room to abstain from voting. And guess what?
Yep, the results get about 10% more negative. So Clyde was right, the managers’ responses were dramatically more positive relative to the line staff. This is good, actionable data for a leader, but is this the way to find out? In front of a live audience? It takes some time, thought, and interviews with managers and staff to understand why the divergence in opinion. But since you had to go all Captain Transparent, now Clyde the shipping clerk wants to know why the managers rate your leadership so high, and hardly anyone else does. And the answer is you don’t know. You can’t possibly know because the last time you asked this question, only 35% of the organization answered it, and you did not realize you even had a problem.
So, you stammer around the issue for a minute or so when mercifully, you get the high sign to wrap up the meeting as it is time for Mary Jane’s cake.
It was gutsy, if naive, for the VP to get up in front of the entire division and run (part) of an employee satisfaction survey in real-time. And I imagine that many of the staff recognized that and appreciated the effort.
But, by winning points for transparency, the VP traded in a few for credibility, poise, and leadership.
Transparency is good, but be prepared to reveal more than you bargained for at times. And in case your pants fall down, please remember to wear underwear.
Ah yes, the power of hindsight, thinking things through before you act and a good reminder to always have an exit strategy. Great post Steve – as always!
Wow. I’d applaud this guy’s transparency, but his surprise at the results showed he suffered from “CEO disease”. Transparency and ignorance do no make good bedfellows.
I’d love to hear about what happened later – so many times, employee surveys are an exercise in “we care what you think” but “we don’t care enough to do anything about what you think”. Thanks for the thought-provoking post.
this could be a fantastic story *if* the end result was that the leadership accepted the facts, thanked people for participating and being candid, acknowledged their surprise, and took action and asked people to help turn things around. pants and credibility upped substantially.
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I’ve done employee surveys in “real time” (not quite as drastically as this story – wow), but I’ve gotten similar answers – and my FIRST response is always “so, what do you all think can be done to improve this situation? what do you want to do differently?” If we are going to be transparent, we have to be willing to take the lumps, and be prepared for the answers we don’t know.
Of course, I was the consultant.
Not necessarily my lumps.
Great guest post.
Steve,
Actually did this with a corporate Board of Directors last year; and, it worked well because the group was small and the questions were self-assessment “how are we doing?” (20 dimensions) questions.
The range on some of the responses was huge, so the question was: “What’s going on?” Their level of comfort with each other was telling, as someone would say, “Oh, that score of 2 was mine–here’s why.” A discussion would ensue and useful “stuff” came out of it.
But I can’t imagine doing it with a “mixed” group who are unaware of what’s going to happen and unprepared to have the discussion needed to make it worthwhile.