Audience: Leaders
Overview: Old news is just that. Old. Vague. Why use it?
By: Cynthia Kyriazis, Chief Experience Officer, The Culture Think Tank
In the past few months, I’ve been in meetings with leaders who were interested in learning more about The Culture Think Tank and our C5 Assessment.
One leader had a question and the other made a statement. And I didn’t really understand either one of them.
My first meeting was with a CEO. After spending about 30 minutes together, he asked “Well, what have you discovered as the top three things employees identify needing from their leaders? Surely you’ve seen a pattern. I’m sure we could consider those same patterns may be happening here.”
Yes, we see patterns within our client community because we are a data-driven and performance analytics company.
What I fail to see is how those patterns would pertain to this – or any other – organization.
For any type of organizational assessment to be useful and effective, it needs to be anonymous, providing tailored and prioritized information to the leaders so they focus on the right things. This prevents a potential waste of time, energy, and money as they seek solutions.
Information specific to the organization is key, not patterns or generalities from other sources.
The second meeting I had was with a CHRO.
She was tasked with taking information from an annual engagement survey and sharing it with the executive team to help develop the organization’s strategic plan for the upcoming year.
The CHRO said they already knew what employees wanted and needed because of an assessment conducted that past December.
But I met with her in June of the following year…7 months later!
This means what employees shared in December was still the focus for June. The information became outdated with every month that passed.
This would be like a football coach who uses the instant replay info from the last 2 minutes of the first quarter to make critical next-step decisions for the last 2 minutes of the 4th quarter.
We offer monthly and bi-monthly Check Ins. And always provide current, tailored and prioritized information. It enables leaders to develop an action plan to begin to address employee needs based on current data. We also offer quarterly check-ins for those organizations that have worked to improve their culture and want to learn how they’re doing or what critical adjustments may be needed. And yes, we offer an annual check-in as well.
We know that working towards developing a healthy workplace culture is a process that takes time. Lots of time. And effort. Everyone’s effort.
Because of this, we suggest our annual Culture Diagnostic Check In after all the heavy lifting has been done and the organization has worked through the process of strengthening their culture.
The lesson here is to learn more about how your employees are feeling and what they need requires current information. And it needs to be anonymous. And it needs to be tied to some type of action steps leaders can take to address the concerns moving forward in a timely fashion.
Generalities don’t beget actions. Prioritized and tailored information provides the opportunity to work on prioritized and tailored solutions. Which yield better, more effective outcomes. And that’s what we all want.
Cynthia Kyriazis is the Chief Experience Officer for The Culture Think Tank. Her experience includes executive coaching, consulting and training.
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