Sharing/discussions with your leaders:

Sit down with your leadership team to review the results.    Look for and discuss the following:

• Celebrate the above average scores first – get some positive energy flowing.

• Think about and learn from the below average scores.

• Avoid the temptation to try to figure out who answered with disagree scores (“why did we score so low here – who is to blame?”).  It’s not productive and it will distract you from what you really need to do.

Review the survey from two perspectives:

• Are we happy with our scores? Look for the lower statement averages and think about whether you are comfortable for your team opinion to be where it is (regardless of how your company compared with other companies).

• Are we happy with how we compared to other teams? Look for the larger negative differences between you and the other companies who took the survey. Now that you know your scores and that other teams scored better, what actions do you need to take?

Commit To Action:

• Identify 3-5 statements or comments where you want to improve most.  ‘

• Brainstorm ways you can improve on those statement. 

• After generating 10+ ideas, commit to action on the ideas that will have the most impact. 

• Group the ideas into 2 categories:  short term actions (easy to do, low hanging fruit), and long-term actions (harder to do, but very impactful). 

• Assign each action item an owner (person who will make sure the idea gets implemented) and a proposed date for it’s completion. 

• Follow-up regularly with the owners of each action to make sure the commitments get done.

Sharing/discussions with the whole team:

Here are some principles to keep in mind in your discussion with the team:

• Set the dates to sit down with groups of 5-10 and discuss the results.  Real discussions are hard with too many people.

• Start with the good news – the positive variances where your team was above average – celebrate the good news.

• Look at the negative variances – share the ideas for improvement that you’ve already developed.

• Ask them – “what else could we do better together” for each high variance statement – get them talking and sharing their ideas.

• Maintain an attitude of curiosity – write down what you hear, no defensiveness or arguing.  At the end, thank them sincerely for their feedback.

• Process with your leadership team later the ideas and add to your ideas for action.   Add the best ideas to your action plan.

Improving Your Team’s Results

Put the ideas into motion as soon as you can and keep taking actions to improve. The goal is to show the team that the survey and their sharing has made a difference and that things are changing for the better.

Schedule the Next Survey

I’ll be doing this survey every 3 months. I recommend doing this survey at least annually, and some teams have committed to doing it every 6 months. If your team elects to participate, your results will show your progress over time.