Ghost Writer has absolutely no endorsement from the makers of Kool-Aid for this blog post, and yes, the title is a reference to a sad cult mass death a number of years ago.
Culture. Ahhhh... the modern HR Leader's and Manager's equivalent of the Holy Grail. We seek to build culture. We seek, at the pinnacle of that building, to have an engaged culture. Which in turn creates these massively successful companies where we all dream of working happily along side of each other like so many Santa's elves or Snow White's dwarves. "Whistle while you work, twee-eet, tweet, tweet..." You get the picture.
So we survey our employees to make sure we have this amazing, engaged, results-generating culture, and have action planning meetings, or as I like to say, "Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid already." My colleague said it even better recently, "I've long ago learned that the higher I rate my boss on the culture survey, the less work I have to do when the results come back."
This leads me to two hypotheses. One, the survey loses its power to measure change and aid in developing real culture shifts when those taking the survey learn "the right answer". Two, those employees who wait for the survey to whine about his/her manager aren't really worth worrying about anyway.
Psychologists have done a marvelous job of documenting the stimulus-response patterns in human and animal behavior. I'm certainly no expert on this topic, but after a while of culture surveying, employees get the message. However it may not be the one the company wishes it had sent. The company wants the employee to hear, "We care about you. Give us feedback by doing this anonymous survey and then participate in helping us make the place better." The employee hears, after years of these surveys, "If I answer the questions right, you won't bug me, and I can go back to doing my work and that of the three people laid-off in the last downsizing." Or in the case of my colleague, "If I answer these questions in a way that makes my boss look like a rock star, I don't have to help him change which means I have time to do my job which really does make him look like a rock star."
Related to the second hypothesis, the employee who waits for the survey to bring attention what he/she is not getting from the boss doesn't understand a high-performance culture in the first place. These are people either disengaged in proactive career management, i.e. actively engaging him or her self in the workplace, or just live life as a passive-aggressive. Either way, why are we pandering to them through an expensive survey and then the action planning process to "improve" the results? Does this come back to my blog on policies only applying to 3% of the workforce? Are these surveys to get this 3% of passive-aggressive/non-self-managers to speak up about what they need at work? I feel my desire to install shock collars coming on again.
So as the company puts another round of the culture surveys through your world, just remember, as Marti has sagely pointed out, we're all sales people. Sell the company message of caring, because most employers really do need the best from each person on the team, passive-aggressive or otherwise. However, feel free to get a laugh when you do yours by thinking, "Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid" or some other pithy comment worthy of a laugh.
Culture. Ahhhh... the modern HR Leader's and Manager's equivalent of the Holy Grail. We seek to build culture. We seek, at the pinnacle of that building, to have an engaged culture. Which in turn creates these massively successful companies where we all dream of working happily along side of each other like so many Santa's elves or Snow White's dwarves. "Whistle while you work, twee-eet, tweet, tweet..." You get the picture.
So we survey our employees to make sure we have this amazing, engaged, results-generating culture, and have action planning meetings, or as I like to say, "Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid already." My colleague said it even better recently, "I've long ago learned that the higher I rate my boss on the culture survey, the less work I have to do when the results come back."
This leads me to two hypotheses. One, the survey loses its power to measure change and aid in developing real culture shifts when those taking the survey learn "the right answer". Two, those employees who wait for the survey to whine about his/her manager aren't really worth worrying about anyway.
Psychologists have done a marvelous job of documenting the stimulus-response patterns in human and animal behavior. I'm certainly no expert on this topic, but after a while of culture surveying, employees get the message. However it may not be the one the company wishes it had sent. The company wants the employee to hear, "We care about you. Give us feedback by doing this anonymous survey and then participate in helping us make the place better." The employee hears, after years of these surveys, "If I answer the questions right, you won't bug me, and I can go back to doing my work and that of the three people laid-off in the last downsizing." Or in the case of my colleague, "If I answer these questions in a way that makes my boss look like a rock star, I don't have to help him change which means I have time to do my job which really does make him look like a rock star."
Related to the second hypothesis, the employee who waits for the survey to bring attention what he/she is not getting from the boss doesn't understand a high-performance culture in the first place. These are people either disengaged in proactive career management, i.e. actively engaging him or her self in the workplace, or just live life as a passive-aggressive. Either way, why are we pandering to them through an expensive survey and then the action planning process to "improve" the results? Does this come back to my blog on policies only applying to 3% of the workforce? Are these surveys to get this 3% of passive-aggressive/non-self-managers to speak up about what they need at work? I feel my desire to install shock collars coming on again.
So as the company puts another round of the culture surveys through your world, just remember, as Marti has sagely pointed out, we're all sales people. Sell the company message of caring, because most employers really do need the best from each person on the team, passive-aggressive or otherwise. However, feel free to get a laugh when you do yours by thinking, "Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid" or some other pithy comment worthy of a laugh.
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Interesting, I was just reading a book on change management that is best summarized by shut-up, believe upper management has thought it through and make it your job to make their plan work. Take the opportunity to point out things that are missing that move the program forward, but keep it upbeat. In the end, your career depends on making those guys at the top look good, so starting polishing the apples and dusting the books.
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