Consulting Without a Survey Is Like Brain Surgery Without a CAT Scan

I have joined an Employee Engagement forum in which seemingly successful consultants blog about the importance of motivating employees so they, as a unit, will perform their duties in a way that delights their customer and results in greater profitability. The responses I have read cause me to fall off my chair! The only analogy I can draw is like brain surgeons doing brain incision work without a cat scan. It is like surgery by "touch and feel".


Now consider a surgeon prepared with preemptive analysis. I am sure you would feel more comfortable as a patient if your surgeon knew EXACTLY what he was doing. Using survey data gives you a picture of the entire engagement climate and culture, all at one time, so that consultants will know what surgery to perform, where to do it and how to do it effectively and efficiently. As a for instance, in a worldwide company of 2000 employee and 200 managers and 30 VP, where do you begin?

With organizational survey data results, you instantly find the critical places to focus, where to prioritize, who to coach, who to have engaged conversations with, even gain insights to know if the issues are top-down and if the solutions are bottom-up. By asking Organizational Excellence questions you can also assess processes, culture, customer focus issues, and other concerns degrading efficiencies and requiring instant response. For a client benefit, as well as evidencing impact of poor engagement, starting your consulting efforts with a survey will give you a pretty good visual and baseline measurement system for the plans ahead.

When the baseline is established, you can then plan individual coaching sessions with managers, who we feel are principally responsible for their departmental culture, with leaders and workers. Added survey technology as the frontend piece then creates the x-ray for you to more effectively take the critical action steps. As a consultant, I try to be like the TV show, House, by first assessing the symptoms and always using explicit evidence to recommend a cure for the toughest organizational diseases.

Try starting out with a good survey next time- you might like it and it might even make your job easier!