“Dear Stan,
Our organization, like many others, is experiencing very difficult economic challenges. So far we’ve been able to not let anyone go, but money is tight and we’re all trying to do more with a lower budget. We don’t know how much worse it’s going to get. As a board member, I’m thinking it would be useful to survey our staff, to see how they’re feeling about the company’s mission, get their view of our capacity constraints and assess their readiness for changes in our organizational structure. What do you think about the survey approach for this purpose?
Signed,
Without Clues”
Dear Clueless,
I can appreciate your desire to make sure you are connected to your staff’s opinions, concerns and attitudes. Troubled times require a complete understanding of the organization, in order for a leader to be able to make the right decisions. But if you didn’t already know the organizational “climate” before the crisis hit, sending out a survey isn’t going to improve your education. And it will likely demoralize your staff further. Let me explain why this might be.
When an employee gets an invitation to complete a survey about the organization, their reaction is dependent upon a few things. The first is context. If the current work conditions are related to a time of growth and opportunity, the survey will be viewed as a way to improve the company and possibly advance one’s career. It’s flattering to be asked one’s opinion in good times, because it reinforces the feeling of being important to the successes achieved. But if the times are bad, the survey will be received in an emotion of fear or cynicism. The fear is that there is some nefarious purpose for the survey that relates to job security. The cynicism stems from being asked through an impersonal means how one feels. The thought in response is, “Why don’t you just ask me the next time you see me? Why are you wasting what little time I have to fill out a survey that just reveals you don’t know anything about me or this company?”
The second associated factor is expectation. How the survey is described and what purpose it will serve can improve or erode the credibility of the project. If one receives a survey and is told that management is “interested in finding out more about how our employees view these important qualities of our company”, the expectation will be that the results are to be used in making decisions. Again, if times are bad, the expectation may be different than what the employee has been told, because personal security rises on the priority list the more the employee feels at risk of economic loss. A fearful employee will see the survey as a way of improving his chances of continued employment, or a way for management to choose who to get rid of. Either of these two choices decreases objectivity and increases preservation-based subjectivity. Any ambiguity about the purpose of the survey will cause the employees to expect only negative outcomes from participation.
Then there is the Titanic Factor, i.e., will the survey activity be equated to the oft-cited rearrangement of deck chairs? There is nothing so disheartening as to be working one’s butt off, accomplishing miracles with tape, paper clips and little time, then being interrupted from that intense effort in order to fill out a form to tell one’s boss what he could have learned by more frequent authentic conversation. Studying a problem is fine when you have the time to do so. When time is short and the stakes are high, people need leaders to be definitive, action-oriented, able to make sound decisions quickly and show optimistic confidence based on facts and personal skills. It’s too late as a leader to acquire the knowledge and skill necessary to fulfill this role if it hasn’t been achieved by the time the alarms start ringing.
To express the point in an earthier way, taking a person’s temperature while they’re choking on a chicken bone is, well, bone-headed.
I have a method you might find useful, about how I choose to behave as a leader in a business. First, I think of the action I’m considering. Then I pretend I’m Dilbert and imagine how that character would react. Then I imagine I’m reading the Dilbert strip. If I get a good laugh out of it, I don’t take the action. I call this method the Dilbert Dipstick.
It has saved me from many, if not all, occasions of bone-headed leadership. May it serve you as well.