On Listening – A Poster for Thinking

The idea of, “Ask and Ye Shall Receive” should be familiar to most readers.

A short article in Workforce by the CEO of a survey company (Michael Papay) said that a listening culture “builds trust in the workforce.”

I mean, this stuff ain’t rocket science. People DO have ideas for all sorts of improvements and asking them for those ideas is simply good management. It is also proven to be an effective motivator if those same ideas are acted on, unlike the good old organizational survey which asks and then basically ignores. Right?

We approach things differently.

Instead of doing a survey and generating a sense of paranoia if they respond candidly, why not have the supervisor of those people simply ASK them for their thoughts. And have the manager of those supervisors simply ASK them for their thoughts. If the focus is on the things that don’t work, it is likely to be useful information and it is likely to avoid those Senior Manager feelings as if the organization is being attacked by the employees. You can actually gain good information and generate more alignment.

Overall, the situation looks like this:

Seriously.

If you need some simple tools, visit our website by clicking on the image. There, you will find our Stupidly Simple Toolkit ($25 with slides and handouts) for improving engagement and communications,

For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant.

 
Connect with Scott on Google+ – you can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com

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Scott’s blog on themes of People and Performance is here.

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