Surveys Suck
Surveys suck. I know, it's a bold statement. But stick with me for a minute...
First, let's take a step back. Last week, I kicked off a new series on psychological safety. You know you have a psychologically safe environment when employees take the interpersonal risk of speaking up about their questions, concerns, and ideas. Sadly, employees often won't do this because they fear retribution or worry they'll look ignorant.
And then there's this age-old question: Why don't leaders ask their employees for feedback and input more often? Well, because it's time consuming! Going "door to door" is laborious, and trying to reconcile different opinions can be complicated.
Enter surveys. They seem infinitely scaleable and time efficient. However, they're a blunt instrument and are often untrusted by those completing them.
Consider this: Gallup reports that only 8% of employees strongly agree that their organizations take action on surveys. They also report that only 1 in 4 employees feel like their opinions matter at work. Compare both of those stats to the fact that about 75% of organizations use some kind of survey tool. (Gartner)
Maybe it's my wonder brain, but I'm always skeptical when there is a widespread "solution" being used (surveys) at the same time there's a widespread pain point ("my opinion doesn't matter"). This seems like a ripe environment for innovation!
Let's dig into the challenges:
First, most surveys do not measure how people feel. Rather, they measure how people feel about the choices you gave them. This means there's an inherent confirmation bias that occurs. Compare and contrast these two questions:
Which of the following choices describe your biggest pain point at work? (Multiple choice options follow.)
What is your biggest pain point at work?
Asking the open-ended question allows participants to fully express what it is they're feeling (and why!), which is much more effective. Unfortunately, the survey-related tactic for managing this scenario makes it pretty painful because the leader ends up with pages and pages of comments that are hard to collate.
Second, most survey responses are only seen by the moderator. As such, many employees wonder if they're feeling what others are feeling. And they don't find out until the survey results are shared by the facilitator, which sometimes takes months. This can lead to a trust problem, which sounds like "How can a seemingly efficient survey tool take so long to readout ... I wonder if management is hiding something!"
Finally, surveys aren't trusted or effective because leaders often do not take action on the feedback they've received. Is this because leaders don't really care about feedback or because they're pencil whipping the activity? Mostly, no. Multiple choice surveys can just be hard to action-plan! This is especially prevalent when results yield an equal response to all choices. As an example, a multiple choice survey with 4 options yielding a 25% response rate for each option.
Let's talk solutions:
To combat this reality, I suggest leaders: 1) Use more than a traditional survey to get feedback from their employees and 2) take demonstrable action based on the feedback received, in a timely manner.
Of course, I like POPin as a tool for asking open-ended questions that seek feedback. It powerfully augments surveys used for research and evaluation by providing a safe and anonymous way for employees to truthfully speak up. And, because participants can see each other's (unnamed) responses real-time, they crowdsource and solve by voting other people's responses up and down throughout the duration of the session. This design fosters a dynamic conversation with collated results for efficient decision making and action planning.
Within a few days of receiving feedback from a collective group, you should always play back the results and communicate your intention. As an example, "I asked all of you what your biggest pain point is at work and you said that we have too many competing priorities. Given there is confusion about what's most important right now, I will work with you in the next week to clarify our top priority."
These two tactics start to build an important bridge to psychological safety. If you seek knowledge (regularly) with your team ... if you ask them how they truly feel, and then take action, you will continue to build trust.
Chris Laping is the best-selling author of People Before Things. He is also the CEO of Change Needs Leaders, Inc. (proud makers of POPin). Kickstart honest, real-time conversations with your team by starting a 14-day trial today!
