Make Data Work For You

The survey business has many faces, from the simple Survey Monkey polls to the advanced technology sites with  indepth statistical analysis reports only trained experts can understand. The former will always have a place in organizations. Companies can gravitate to these types of polling surveys because they are cheap and many think merely focusing on low scores in a pie chart  is the pathway to better a company. Unfortunately for the companies, this is never the case. There is a big difference between polling a company to find out what percentage of people are happy and using a sophisticated survey tool to develop prioritized action plans for each workgroup/manager.

Diagnostic tools that are built strictly for business transformation will ALWAYS provide better results than those that can also be used to find the percentage of students who prefer chicken nuggets to hot dogs in the cafeteria. Businesses require three competencies:

1. A great analytical tool built specifically for organizational analysis
2. Competency in in analysis, change management, alignment
3. An implementation plan that will breed success.

 

Be innovative. These skills and tools must be learned, tested, and adapted for clients. If there is one thing you must remember about surveys, it is that data is easy to get, but change from data is not.

Brainstorming for Survey Design

Force field Analysis is a wonderful brainstorming tool to elicit from your survey team members the key drivers and barriers of our organization. Force Field Analysis involves listing, and then examining, the factors that can help implement the change and those that can hinder it. This lays the groundwork for creating the survey's Critical Success Factors and items. Force Field analysis is based on the law of physics that says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. A state of equilibrium is established between these two sets of contending forces. Change one force on either side and the situation changes-unless met by a new contrary force of equal strength.


This analysis technique is more than a decision-making technique. When used creatively , it identifies, for your organization, the key drivers to get you where you want to be (your Main Thing) as well as your barriers of getting there.
 
Here are the four steps for sucessful Force Field Analysis:
 
STEP 1: Identify the Main Thing on a flip chart on the far right and your present state on the left.


STEP 2: With a brainstorming technique, starting on the left side, go around the room and offer ideas how to go from where you are to the MT. All ideas are written down without any dialogue and keep adding ideas until each member passes.

STEP 3: Now identify the barriers you feel that would prevent you from reaching the goals of the MT for each of the drivers.

STEP 4: Make a list of all drivers and barriers on a clean paper, which list will be your guide in identifying the Categories, Factors and Items. Each of the “drivers” or “restrainers” will be in corporate into the survey design. Each of the items are directly correlated to the success of achieving the corporate vision.

Is a 25% Response Rate OK?

At the risk of being controversial, the following myth needs to be debunked:

"A 25%  response rate is OK."

For organizational comprehension, action planning, strategy defining, its unusable. A 25% response is terrible. It speaks volumes about either the culture your working in, poor presurvey communication, no reward for taking the survey, no visioning about how to get to a critical 80% response level, lackluster management commitment, and maybe 10 other flaws in the survey process.
If your intent is to get a pulse, than I might soften my stance, but who wants a pulse if it doesn't even tell you if the patient is doing more than just breathing, How does a pulse help guide a professional consultant trying to blueprint a clients to better profitability. IT DOESN'T! Unreliable data results.
Survey taking is a business, Its serious and must be taken seriously. A failure might well have negative feedback implications, and for a consultant, potentially devastating to their reputation. My best advice, don't do it if you don't know what your doing.

Designing Your Survey To Your Vision

"My bottom-line is what does the organization's management want to happen, then what needs to happen." might best be served in the survey design phase.


Try designing the survey questions based on visioning (i.e. "where do you want to be in 2013?") . The second comment is key, "how would you get there?". Have a brainstorming session using Contingency Diagrams, Force Field Analysis tools or any systems you have to draw out conversation about the current state - the existing barriers and strengths.

Once the client describes how to get to that vision,  add in open ended questions asking people to contribute or explain their experiences. You need a survey tool that can drive real client value used by consultants that understand survey analysis. Survey analysis using diagnostics is not a skill that is intuitive.

From survey results, the consultant can see which workgroup has developmental needs in order to contribute to the vision blueprint. Every question asked in the survey is directly correlated to the vision so improving the scores of any question by any workgroup is "continuous improvement" to the vision.

Not to forget the real power of analysis. Unlimited demographic slicing, cross tab within groups, unlimited comparing of groups and more is a key consultant's ally . If your survey diagnostic engine can function like an in depth market study, you have unlimited ability to find the misalignments. Correlation analysis, histograms, gap perception tools, value chain analysis, and alignment analysis tools are the keys to understanding how to really help clients.

Look for tools that have been designed and built by consultants. I'm not promoting what we do--I am only stating a fact. You know, the "until you walk in my shoes...".

If you really look and compare, all basic functionality of survey tools are the same. They collect data online, plug that data into a SQL database and then display results in bar charts for your analysis. The add on features for analysis aids should be your concern. If you are expecting survey tools to give you value, simply ask your vendor if the analysis engine has been built by OD consultants.

So, end of point. Consultants need skills and training in survey design, analysis and meaningful action blueprinting if they really want to gain a mastery of using surveys with clients. Consultant misfeasance in use of survey tools and results is alive and well; hence the naysayers of consultants about surveys.

Survey use can be the genesis of the best consulting experience for both clients and consultants.

Vital Conditions For Coaching Success

Establishing an open and honest conversation between the Coach and Manager is vital to their mutual success. If the Manager approaches a coaching conversation with fear, then that fear (and even more dangerous – the fear of retribution) will be interwoven into the fabric of the entire experience.
For coaching conversations to be successful, both parties need to see feedback as an opportunity to explore what elements will contribute to future success, and the basis of coaching will be strategies for successfully getting there. If fear erodes the conversations, trust and openness cannot be built – even when both parties have the best intentions in mind. This team effort must be focused on how to create environments that break from the past and allow connectivity and positive conversations to flow between the parties. Once this Coaching experience yields success between Manager and Coach, then the same experience can be replicated between the Manager and their Direct Reports – creating a positive ripple effect in the organization.

Suggested Questions for Coaching the Manager

1. How would you describe your accountability for coaching the people in your Department?

2. What percentage of your time do you think should ideally be spent coaching?

3. What percentage of your time do you actually spend coaching?

4. How would you characterize the link between development and performance?

5. How receptive to coaching are the people who report to you?

6. What are barriers or hindrances to coaching do you encounter?

7. What support would you need to enhance your coaching effectiveness?

8. How could the coaching you receive be improved?

9. What are the key questions we should explore in the session on coaching we are planning?

10. What other subject should we cover in the session?

HR Happiness Survey

How can you expect HR to serve as the company engagement leader responsible for initiating a plan of "engaging" the People, when even HR might not be engaged themselves?

How and why can I say that?
Five years ago I conducted a Human Resource Happiness Survey in Trinidad (of all places) and got some rather startling results. Of course, that reflects the culture of a place 15 miles from Venezuela but being curious, I collected additional responses from HR folks in Connecticut - wow, was I stunned! The scores were the same. It appears that HR, no matter what country, can be treated like the gum on the bottom of the corporate shoe.
In 2006, out of 131 HR professionals, training folks, managers, even officers surveyed, only 66% say the CEO consults with HR about employee issues. What's really startling was the perception that only 60% of managers felt that HR is a valuable resource in driving worker productivity. What's absolutely wild is that of the 131 surveyed, only 46% said those same managers are doing a good job in motivating their people. Who's poking the eyes out of who?
That was 5 years ago, but the Toolbox for HR and SurveyTelligence are interested to see if corporate USA, and the rest of the world, are finally beginning to appreciate the great contribution HR is making to profitability and business performance. So we built a another HR Happiness survey. From the results, we intend to create a discussion forum about your responses, feelings your career choice being HR (if you are in HR), your frustrations, experiences, aspirations and value to your employer and yourself and whatever else. It's time to sound off! Step up and be heard!

This survey is for everyone. Please click the link below and take the HR Happiness Survey...or will it be known as the "HR Miserable Survey"? You don't need to be just HR. Write whatever you wish in the open ended questions. If you give us an email address in the last open ended question, we will send you a report of our findings.

http://infotool-online.net/index.asp?u=hrhappiness&p=1234&l=en

Consultants Need More Than Just Focus Groups

For centuries advisors used the art of communication with Kings, Captains, Pharoes, Presidents, Dictators, Corporate Leaders to understand the basic underlying issues creating chaos in a culture, country, organization. How else would you learn? The art of conversation, the probing, twisting, turning over of ideas, and not to be jaded, but through the lens of one person. Ahh, lets get several people together and have more probing conversations. This new initiative was called a Focus Group. Oh boy, a new dilemma. How do you sort the most important response from the most common responses? How about conflicting opinions? Who is right and who is wrong? Do these opinions or perception really represent the cause of chaos? Who really hates who and who is telling the truth? Anyone who can actually sort, identify and cope with these issue can be my advisor!
For centuries, the belief was that oral communication between people had evolved as the best way for consultants to learn and advise clients on how to rebuild or form a new culture. Judith Glaser has written several best seller books on the art of communication to create a "WE culture". This communication stuff really works, but it's slow, impacts a small group at a time, not sure if it really changes inbred behaviors, and lasts only as long as your temper or patience lasts. Plus it's only a 1 to 1 relationship. This takes weeks, maybe months.
Maybe more is needed than just one-on-one conversation, or even a focus group of a dozen to really understand the "heartbeat' of the people, or the "pulse"of the business.

Technology, with advanced web based capabilities and powerful SQL back end databases have changed the entire science of learning through communication. Regardless of the survey questions asked- either designer or off the shelf- the survey engine that "spits out the results" can now give the analyst an instant x-ray picture, with analysis and action steps, for each individual workgroup. Imagine know key barriers and issues confronting each manager, each VP, each supervisor or even the CEO.
The output is precise and granular enough to see what's broken, in which department, workgroup or demographics, what action steps must be taken, and with statistical accuracy. These tools need to contain functions as: correlation analysis, automated reports, cross tab analysis, alignment measures by workgroup, performance variation gap analytics, etc. for instant analysis. These tools must be easy to use, graphic, and interactive, having the equivalency of a CAT scan. It must be able to view and analyze each organizational body part. Surveying a company is too expensive both in time and commitment to fail, and so is misdiagnosing actions for companies to take. To combine conversation and diagnostic data, you can now really create value.

What Causes Variablility In Workforce Performance?

What causes variability in workforce performance, within similar workgroups, has been the source of much study but the research that resonates is “among the many variables that discriminate between highly productive workplaces and those that are unproductive, is the quality of the local workplace manager and his or her ability to meet a core set of employees’ emotional requirements.” Primarily, emotional conditions are described as those that meet basic human needs. Buckingham,M & Coffman,C. (1999). First Break all the Rules: What the world’s greatest managers do differently. New York:Simon and Shuster. Coffman, C. & Gonzalas-Molina,G. (2002). Follow this path: How the world’s greatest organizations drive growth by unleashing human potential. New York: Warner.


Our 12 years of research  as a survey consulting firms supports the hard evidence that variability of performance is predominant in most every organization. Why does one department outperform another? The answer is quite simple!

Each department has their own leader that has created the culture for that department in their own image. Usually this local culture is not the same culture declared in the corporate “value proposition”. It’s that simple.
The solution is having a strong corporate leader that has the insights, tools, will, and strategy that will assist each of the local managers in eliminating performance variability in their respective departments. Easy to say, hard to do; until now.

Here’s the ultimate goal. Each department delivers the best output possible, with primary focus on the “critical success factors" consistent with the leader’s stated mission. That means high performance execution of each workgroup, strategically linked to profitability and organic growth. It means eliminate lop sided delivery in the “value chain”; get that HEMI engine working on all 8 cylinders!

Thus, building workforce engagement falls squarely on the shoulders of the local manager and manager engagement falls squarely on the shoulders of the leader. It not trying to regulate humanity, but to build a “we” culture with a purpose of bringing out the best in people. It’s a people to people skill in communication; the growth of Employee Engagement as an operating principle.

Employee Engagement is the most researched management tool to understanding how to build a high performance culture; that managers need as much help as leadership can provide to bring this thinking to the departmental level. In a study of 2,178 business units from 10 companies, research evidenced that workforce engagement predicted levels of performance. Harter,J.K., Schmidt (2005, August). Employee engagement and business unit performance: A longitudinal meta-analytic study of casual direction

This relationship of leader-manager-worker is known as vertical alignment, (Dr. George Labovitz, Power of Alignment, 1997, Wiley) and is managed with ease with precise information.

In summary, high performing workgroups, with willingness, commitment and ability to effectively execute the leader’s vision, need a communication avenue to senior leadership, who has a willingness to meet the need. It all starts by the capture of information with extremely powerful survey analysis tools.

Latest News From SurveyTelligence

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What Makes a High Performance Organization?

Today’s normal is not the same as yesterday’s normal. With manufacturing being outsourced, Egypt and world instability, emerging markets, the subprime mortgage disaster, the unpopularity of the Iraq and Afghan war and the uncertainty of the next presidential race, with the size of unemployed Americans growing at staggering rates, renders a “same old, same old” business strategy obsolete.


How can leaders build organizations to create higher performing workforce cultures, coupled with a new competency of nimbleness, if they expect to continue creating value for their shareholders?

A ”high-performance organization” is one where all departments are in sync, working together, and aligned with each other so as to provide to their customers the very best, on time delivery of your services or products. Anything short of that state of excellence results in varying degrees of misalignment. In that reality, expect troubling impacts on issues of customer loyalty, profitability, process, people, culture and all those other states of being that create loss or create organic growth.

High performance is impossible to achieve so long as there are high degrees of variability’s in departmental work force performance. Simply stated, departments that are performing at different rates and levels of performance is a recipe for loss in profitability and /or growth. This is not a trivial matter, as the larger the variability of workforce performance, the larger the gap between the organizations delivery systems and its customer satisfaction.

What You Need From A Survey Vendor

Technology, with advanced web based capabilities using powerful SQL back end databases, has changed the entire science of survey taking. Regardless of the questions asked- either designer or off the shelf- the survey engine that "spits out the results" must be able to give the analyst an instant x-ray picture of each individual workgroup.
Every survey vendor collects data, inserts it into a database and gives output. It's this "output" that becomes the value proposition for the survey customer and their internal analyst. The output must be precise and granular enough to see what's broken, in which department, workgroup or demographic, what action steps must be taken, and with statistical accuracy. These tools need to contain correlation analysis, automated reports, cross tab analysis, alignment measures by workgroup, performance variation gap analytics, etc. These are the benchmarks for comparing survey products.
These tools must be easy to use, graphic, interactive and have the equivalency of a CAT scan to view and analyze each organizational body parts. This is another benchmark for comparing survey products. To contain costs, look for a vendor that will certify internal HR to manage the data, with coaching capability for continued improvement long after the high priced survey folks have left.
Surveying a company is too expensive both in time and commitment to fail. Shop wisely...there are great new products out there.
 
Stanley Labovitz

SurveyTelligence, Powered by Infotool
http://www.infotool-online.com/
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Check It Out

The latest edition of SurveyTelligence Weekly

Don't Let This Happen To You

Don't let surveys be a waste of time. Make your surveys intelligent and meaningful. Taking multiple surveys a year will only tire your workforce and waste time and money. Provide people with a "WIFM" - What's in it For Me? Let your people know their feedback will help the company and make it a better place to work.

Who the Heck Needs Benchmarking?

Why the heck should you care about benchmarking your business against somebody else's business especially since every company is so different in so many ways?I always thought it was nuts and a waste of good energy.

Being a business adviser, I think I am starting to get it.

When dining at a fancy restaurant, my wife likes to look at all the other husbands and compare how they look, their dress, styles, fi to me. If she sees a shlumpy dressed guy, she now says "how handsome I look tonight". Me, I don't really care, but a driving need to compare seems important to make her, and all those those corporate types feel good ...or even feel lousy. Benchmarking has ZERO business impact, other than seeing how you compared to others.  In fact you cannot compare yourself to others unless you are a twin, or both of you have the same fingerprint.  From a business perspective, it must have some value in generating cash and customers otherwise it wouldn't be such a big business.
 
As a well know secret, benchmarking must be an internal self evaluation, over time, improving YOUR own critical business weakness.

As they say, "go with the flow", so we at SurveyTelligence and Infotool now have a benchmarking database, by industry, built from over 250 surveys and over 300,000 survey takers we have done over the last several years. We give it to clients, for FREE. As the hustlers would say, "for customer delight, give the customer what they want...even if it's not necessarily what they need!"

Best Practices for Employee Surveys

I was on LinkedIn and came across a discussion question I couldn't help from answering.

The question was:

"I am looking for some guidance in determining best practices for a 6-month new employee survey."

This was my response:
Is it really best practices from a new hire you need? Most still have yet to find the cafeteria.
What's really important is to know if they are engaged, working for a caring, knowledgeable manager, understand the underlying driving forces to help achieve the "business of the business" get along with co-workers, culture and a bit more.
We have been doing this survey stuff for over 15 years and the only need you have is to make sure new hires are keeping their "bloom" on the flower. The items asked must have a capability for a quick fix, usually through manager relationships. Have a means to identify each worker by manager, and give each manager a report card as to how well they are mentoring their hires. It's one thing to ask questions, its another thing to have actions and fix what you discovered.

For analysis to have meaning, upscale from survey monkey. Get away from tools whose results only give high level norms or polling type results without analysis competencies like cross tabs, unlimited demographic slicing, comparing, etc.
 
Instead, get results that give you directed action plans that you can wrap your hands around.

Advanced News Update for SurveyTelligence

SurveyTelligence, Powered by Infotool has been selected from a competitive field of survey vendors, as the Survey Consulting Firm for the 2011 "Transformational Culture" project for the University of West Indies. UWI has over 50,000 students in both undergraduate and graduate program, with a staff of over 3,000 within 3 Residencies, Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad.
The project will start in July with a senior level conference in Kingston, Jamaica to identify the vision and build a defined set of survey items around it. This will be followed by a well-publicized communication plan for conducting the UWI High Performance Employee Engagement Survey. After analysis of survey results, a senior level executive report will be presented with defined action plans for the most effective path to the vision. We will transform the existing culture to one of high engagement energy, with revisions to process and leadership initiatives to maintain the university's reputation as the leading provider of higher education in the Caribbean. Post analysis, the intent is to train and certify internal HR staff as coach/mentor to each of the managers/supervisors and facilitate action plans at each of the department level using the precise results generated by the Infotool diagnostic.

The project will take three months, with a follow up measurement in twelve months. The certified internal staff will continue in their role as talent improvement experts long after SurveyTelligence has left.

Stanley Labovitz, CEO of SurveyTelligence and Infotool has been selected as the key note speaker in September 26, 2011, in San Jose, Costa Rica for the GBM world wide organization. Using GBM's facilities, he will be broadcasting to all GBM's countries, also including over 12,000 people from BAC, a large multi-international banking conglomerate, Nicaragua and Columbia. Labovitz, a recognized expert in organizational transformation installing alignment, engagement and measurement principles, will spend the day sharing experiences, leading a panel and presenting best practices of highly successful companies that have transformed their culture for greater profitability, and beginning through measurement, how to build that sought after engaged workforce aligned to the "business of the business".

Redefining Leadership

In the 70’s and 80’s, we talked mostly about the strong and tough leader, the courageous leader, the results-driven leader and the leader who measured success by how many people followed.

During the past 15 years, our view of leadership has changed. We have redefined great leadership by adding more human capabilities and capacities, including behaviors such as empathy. Supporting and developing others and caring about the impact we have on those who look up to us.

“Co-creating” is a new and different word. Its meaning is not about negotiating, giving in or accommodating one time so I can get what I want another time. Co-creating is a state of mind and a way of working with others that is much more inclusive than what most leaders previously thought. It requires that leaders learn how to facilitate conversations with others in a new way. It requires that leaders are aware of themselves to correct behaviors that can ruin relationships.

As a consultant or HR professional, it can be difficult to address these issues. Survey data is key. Measuring the level of how in synch a leader is with his/her team in all the critical measures is imperative for co-creating. Many times, leaders see the world through "rose-colored glasses" but reality cannot be subjective.

If you are a leader, ask yourself, "does your team see the world as you do?".

Change From A Certified Survey Consultant

Certified Survey Consultant and Founder of FutureNow Consulting, LLC. Michael J. Stabile shares his experiences using SurveyTelligence techniques and Infotool Technology:

I have been working with a high school planning team at a well-known school in Cincinnati, OH. They had recently completed a survey process using Infotool diagnostics to get a “snap shot” of their school culture. However, at this particular meeting the dialogue keep focusing on a major process and structural change. For over forty-five minutes the administrative team and staff were conflicted over the change and the reaction of the staff. I asked if I could interject an idea that might be helpful.


With our ability to dig deeply into the data using SurveyTelligence’s Infool to analyze their data, literally within five minutes, I was able to help their thinking to change directions that would have been toxic for the school culture. Using the horizontal and vertical alignment visual (modified for education) they were able to clearly get the message.

On the following Monday, I was asked to present the data results and analysis of the High School's DNA of Culture Survey to about 40 of their staff members to position their school culture with specific and target areas to address. I presented what I am now calling the Strategic Learning Alignment Model. The initial stress about process and structural change became less and less of an issue, because the data analysis helped them to see the higher priority of vertical alignment. The leadership and department within the culture had some major misalignments and the results were mistrust, lack of real collaboration, and entrenched territorialism that was causing “toxic” relationships. We delayed the process and structural change and they contracted with me for the next school year on building high performance teams to address the vertical alignment issues.

Michael J. Stabile, Ph.D. is an experienced educator, life/leadership coach, consultant, author, and part of the SurveyTelligence team. He works with individuals and organizations in people and organizational capacity development. Mike is a professor at Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH and founded and leads FutureNow Consulting, LLC. FutureNow is committed to personal, group, and organizational transformation. For more information on the Strategic Learning Alignment Model contact Mike at mstabile@futurenowed.com or www.futurenowed.com




If you are interested in building your business becoming a Certified Survey Consultant, contact us at info@infotool-online.com or call 1-866-616-5552

Measurement for Turnaround Management Experts

Besides the metric of money, a Turnaround Management expert must have the support of the workforce (managers and workers alike) to exert the mental energy, commitment and innovation to continue supporting the effort to save the business. This is a turnaround and you need unbiased, critical historical operational information- not just from two or three people at top levels of an unsuccessful leadership team.
The measurement of organizational engagement is essential. Engagement measures include looking at strategies, process, people and customers through the lens of each workgroups. The more you understand your project, people, customers, and the entire culture, the more successful you will be in NOT CONTINUING TO PROPAGATE THE EXISTING CULTURE. (Principles of engagement are found in the Wiley best seller, Power of Alignment, a 1997 treatis by Dr. George Labovitz.)

This rapid learning process should take no more than four day, and it will be your "holy grail" blueprint moving forward with the entire project. Correlation and alignment tools provide a means to ID toxic managers and workgroups, operational needs, misfires in the value chain, as well as the strong people upon which you can rely will be at your fingertips. Expert analysis assistance should be available as you probably don't have time nor bandwidth.
Happy to tell you more...

Mind Taking Our Exit Survey?

Aligning Training to People Engagement

I was raised in the early part of my career working for a training company-1990's. The company training products were state of the art and we trained over 400,000 people. What we never were able to do was measure the effectiveness we had on the workforce post training. We trained people just for the sake of training because the perceptions were that 'trained people would improve performance'.
In the 2011 era, albeit in a different format, we now discovered that pre-measurement of the level of alignment of the workforce is necessary. Training is best served with a workforce that has passed a higher "workforce engagement threshold" than those that have a lower score.
Aligning the training to people "engagement" requirements provides a measurement mechanism to help ensure the training is sustained, takes hold to improve the culture, the manager skills and styles and more. In fact the training content should serve as the means of helping to grow and align the employee competencies to better serve the client/customer, teaming for better performance, and alignment to the corporate mission.
So, before training, get a measurement of the people's engagement, to include the culture, manager and leadership skills and styles, process, awareness of the company mission and whether customers needs are being met. First fix any significant misalignments discovered from the measurements. Then select a training tool kit that trains with a purpose of fulfilling the company mission with a workforce committed to performance improvement. The ROI will then be justified.

Did You Know?

Did you know that top managers, compared to average performers, deliver a 49% increase in productivity? That the average organization could reduce turnover by 9% by having the right leaders in place? And that the average hiring mistake can cost you up to 15 times the hire’s base salary? In today’s environment, finding the right manager or leader is a complex process and is a major challenge for many organizations. Many companies simply do not have access to the talent data they need to make informed business decisions on who will make the best managers and leaders.
Having the right leadership in place dramatically improves morale, retention, productivity and customer satisfaction. Identifying best-fit leaders and managers is more achievable than you might realize. Companies who have implemented leadership assessment programs drive incredible results.

Can You Make a Diagnosis Based on a "Pulse"?

A physician takes a pulse as a signal of an underlying symptom of something more serious, but don’t expect a physician to decide you need open heart survey just with a pulse reading. Nor should you expect that you can support the senior management team in driving growth and revenue in your organization with just a “pulse reading”.

Taking a “pulse” of the workforce falls short as far as actionability. Do you look at a score on a question and take action? Which question? What action? Is it the right action? What’s you ROI? Will it achieve your goal to improve the “pulse”? It’s impossible to take meaningful, actions on feelings, opinions, and behaviors when survey items are analyzed or interpreted without a "Main Thing".

Growth of the business is a wonderful “Main Thing”, how to drive increased shareholder value, or building a customer focused organization, or how to get physician to adopt a new EMR (emergency medical record) system-something with substance direction, financial and ROI return; meaningful to the “boss”. Sure the boss is interested if his workforce is happy, but happy people are not enough to drive a strategic financial outcome.

Communication is Key

A well publicized survey communication plan conveys that a survey is not simply another flavor of the month exercise. Employees (and even customers) are sick and tired of answering survey questionnaires that have no visible outcome. Why waste my time when it does nothing for me? A lack of courtesy by management in not letting people know about results, or even a giving them a simple "thank you" for giving input on how management and shareholders can make more money. Seems a bit one sided.
If you want to have people respond sincerely, openly and honestly, give them the courtesy of communication with words like "please", "we need your help", "your effort has meaning to us (management) and them (What's In it For Me)", "we appreciate the time spent for honesty and we will let you know how we are doing as an organization" of which they are the MOST critical part. People want to help, you just need to know how to ask for it and show them how their feedback positively contributes to the betterment of the company. This is the key part that many people forget but it insures that our customers are satisfied.

Managerial Development for the 21st Century

The two levels of leadership-C suite and local manager- require the same, yet also quite different needs due to their roles and responsibilities. My reference is to the local manager, as engagement is a primary responsibility to his/her workgroup.
A toxic department in the Value Chain creates opportunity for silos, waste, inefficiencies, turnover, custom issues and more. Engagement is best served at the department level, each manager has a need to become aware of their behaviors, feedback mechanisms, developmental needs, support, alignment to the people, the leadership and the organization, and more.
The need is for assessment, data, feedback tools, so managers know exactly what they need to do to adapt. Company strategies need to en nimble, but so do the managers. Managerial development for the 21st century is a key to this engagement topic. So, in practice, we capture data with diagnostic tools designed to capture and illuminate the alignment of each manager to both the workforce, and to the alignment to the business, it's customers, processes, leadership and more. Even training internal teams to help mentor the managers in larger organization have proven to be cost efficient to the client

Translating Information into Action

“If leaders know the actions to take, leaders will take that action”. This basic elementary statement is the common denominator that will solve all corporate issues and achieve corporate goals; it starts with collecting information that is translatable into knowledge and action.

The use of Infotool diagnostics allows laser precision decision making based on laser granularity of information through the lens of each demographic. The success of blueprinting precise action steps is not only based on the quality of the survey diagnostic, but the quality of the survey questions and demographic architecture. The survey instrument needs to be built around specific achievable goals of the client, and using strategic mapping, every item asked in the survey is directly correlated to the business vision. The ability to identify gaps and performance variations at each level of the organization allows curative action steps unique to each department. Using the manager as the change agent, organizations with experience continuous improvement throughout focused on the business strategy all at the same time.

Employee Engagement Should Not Start With an Exit Interview

Talk about the saying “the horse that is already out of the barn” exit surveys are designed primarily to elicit information as to why people have left an organization. Their attitudes have been tainted, their initiative has been dampened and there is no compelling reason to provide validated information upon which you can rely upon. All of that being said, if information about a manager’s behavior or skills in leading have been captured, this kind of information has merit as a measure of employee engagement.


The Conference Board’s four measures of retention drivers measure 20 reasons why most employees leave organizations – poor manager skills are the number one cause. In employee engagement surveys, always include a strong component to measure managerial skills and make sure that each manager of each department is measured.

Engaged Employees VS Engaged Customers

On a recent project I discovered something that is the anti-research.

Gallop, Hewitt, Blessing White and many other consulting soothsayers claim that when workers are engaged, the results are high performance and greater profitability. They sell you their employee engagement program for huge bucks and you, (and they) pray that their work will bring you immeasurable wealth, happy smiling employees and all will be groovy.

We found just the opposite. An organization with high scores in engagement, great managers, low employee turnover, yet they were still losing customers, losing market share, all with a great product.

We discovered that the process in which they were delivering their goods and services to the customer were "messed up". In fact there was no process in place so everyone did their own thing. No data as to what the customers really cared about; or what happens at their "touch points."
Moral of the story-employee engagement is but a state of mind that seems to be a prerequisite for having "engaged customers."- the end game for business growth. Maybe there's a lot more to this engagement "stuff" than just the propaganda from these consulting soothsayers.

SurveyTelligence Criteria for Engagement

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/SurveyTelligence-Criteria-for-Engagement-Surveys.html?soid=1102643166220&aid=NVKjjCr3pVk

5 Ways to Be a Great Leader

I found this on LinkedIn and wanted to share:

What are the five ways to be a great leader?

1. Serve others – Spend your time helping your employees, partners, suppliers and clients become successful in their activities. Adding value to their lives is the most important way to shine as a leader.

2. Associate with great people – This is so important. Surround yourself with positive, motivated leaders and you will find that you will become more effective. Surrounding yourself with negative people will end up making your obstacles more difficult to overcome.

3. Help develop other leaders within your organization – When you spot someone who has what it takes to be a great leader, instead of feeling threatened, you should do everything that you can to assist them.

4. Delegate – Try not to feel like you have to prove your abilities by handling everything yourself. Teach others how to perform some of your tasks and show them how to take initiative in your business.

5. Take responsibility – This is a key trait in a great leader. A leader takes responsibility for the outcome of a project and acknowledges that he or she is ultimately responsible the success or failure of the team. If you take responsibility for your team, your team will be loyal to you.

If you follow these five suggestions, you will be well on your way to excellent leadership!

Root Cause of Survey Failure

The root cause of survey failure is the inability or difficulty to execute effective change. Note the word "effective" for those ready to pounce.
When data results of large groups are calculated by averages, barriers to change efforts increase by multiples. Contrasted, with an ability to see survey results idvidually by pockets of groups within that large group, targeted change for that small group become an instant capability for the change agent.
To see a CAT scan picture of each organizational 'body part', the task of the consultant/client becomes easily manageable. Departments by each manager now become an individual action plan based on what's critical and discovered to that department - the impact is rapid and dramatic. Once each manager can see how their behaviors, values and style impacts their workgroup, change potential is instant. Adding a one-on-one coaching initiative produces even more effective transformational results for that manager and that workgroup. Internally trained experts keep the cost of implementation to virtually zero, an internal talent management team is being groomed, and accountability and sustainability is a by product. The change continues long after the survey consultants leave.

Certified Survey Consultant in Action

An update from one of our newest Certified Survey Consultants and Licensee of the Infotool Software:

Michael J. Stabile, PhD - CEO of FutureNow Consulting (http://www.futurenowed.com/):

"Just wanted you to know that since we left the training last Wednesday, we have used the training and tools in some fashion or form. On Thursday, I helped our statistics director at Xavier University with our demographic results from the Servant Leadership study for an accreditation review. On Friday, I worked with a high school team at St. Xavier High School and because of our ability to dig deeply into the data, within five minutes was able to help them change directions that would have been toxic for the school culture using the horizontal and vertical alignment visual (modified for education). On Monday, I presented the data results and analysis of St. Xavier High School's DNA of Culture Survey to about 40 of their staff members to position their school culture with specific and target areas to address. Yesterday, Tuesday, I did a presentation for Viox Facilities Management, a business leadership-training group, on their 2011 DNA of Culture results in comparison to their 2010 results and titled the presentation as The Power of Alignment. As part of the training exercise, after I presented the data results, we broke into 6 groups of 3 and each group had to draw conclusions from the data results including the Predictive Matrix measure diagrams, practical applications, and next steps. There was an amazing agreement in and among the groups. Then I showed them my findings, conclusions, and suggested practical next steps. Not only were we aligned, they own the data results. "If you can find it, you can fix it."  This coming Friday, I am work with another school on a strategic planning process and I am going to include The Power of Alignment Model with a suggested survey analysis."

Sound Familiar?

New Power of Survey Diagnostics

Information analysis is the new "holy grail" in our work. In the implementation phase of your work, it's becomes your key capability, as advisers, to "fix what we can discover is broken" through the prioritization of those actions most correlated to the Vision work. This is the new power of survey diagnostics.

This discover phase traditionally is the core of an advisers work product. Imagine how long we will remain "on the job" if we elect to take actions on the wrong critical success factors-the ones with the lowest ROI. You may have more billable hours, but I doubt the company will hire you back.

Surveys have morphed into diagnostic instruments that can aid consultants in their analysis work. No matter which diagnostic you select, its like using a CAT scan machine as a physician does before proscribing; but now consultants have them. Converts say its the newest frontier that can help their clients blueprint the way to rapidly realign organizations in their quest for value creation.

In your next project, try using one of the diagnostic tool for data collection/analysis to see how these new powers will help your effectiveness and value to your client. try to avoid the off the shelf, low budget data collection/analysis system that provides average results, have funny names and provide little advisory/analysis support.

Elevating HR to the Boardroom

HR involvement in understanding and guiding the employee to productivity and engagement is a gift that CEO's would treasure, but HR must first get to a higher level of capability. This higher level of capability means having evidence-based information. There will need to be a proving process to be first demonstrated before HR is invited into the boardroom.

As Deming quoted: " Its not enough to do your best; you must know what to do and then do your best."

My humble opinion is that for HR, as an industry, to gain such acceptance in leadership circles, they must use tools and technology to elevate and gain credible intelligence about employee drivers; then skills to use those tools to impact positive change. New technology is available in the marketplace to support HR and old paradigms need be discarded.

So, the burden lies on HR to elevate itself into the boardroom. Let's say it's a prejudice that will be hard to overcome, but can be only by the most "engaged" HR folks.

SHRM Q&A

1. What specific steps can leaders take to move employees from disengagement to engagement?

Senior Leadership-Very little..Role is vision and set tone for culture
Managers- A great deal. Role is to manage the engagement levels. To know, understand and address the key drivers of motivation. To then connect the engaged worker to the “business of the business”, to include culture, process, training, and customer requirements

2. HR leaders can enhance their strategic contribution by having a greater understanding of the CEO’s point of view. What, according to you, are the things that your CEO will never tell you but HR needs to know?

HR needs to know what’s required of them to make the “business of the business” work according to the vision and projections. What tools, skills and training does the workforce need to meet the customers’ demands?
HR also needs to know what the CEO knows about the customer loyalty strategy. Many times the CEO doesn’t know, especially if the business strategy is correlated to the known customers buying needs and habits

3. A recent study of human resources and leadership development executives, conducted by the Wall Street Journal, showed that the #1 most sought after executive skill is strategic thinking. Unfortunately, 90% of directors and vice presidents have never had any education in strategic thinking. How can HR practitioners master this discipline?

Strategic thinking if correlated to customers sets the core. HR must be involved in the customer satisfaction surveys, be linked to customer service. This is the #1 strategic visioning.. The rest are tactics on execution of that customer strategy.
Can HR master the discipline? Not as long as leadership and HR are not at the same table, and that HR has not mastered an understanding of the business concepts of alignment. HR must expand their span of understanding of business principles. If not, HR will always be considered as just having a benefits analysis function.

4. While HR training can actually improve the business bottom line, organizations often fumble with the knowledge and understanding of establishing expectations and auditing procedures to drive measurable results throughout the organization. How can organizations get it right?

HR training means what? HR is trained or the workforce is being trained.

To get it right, training must be associated with the “business of the business”. Training needs to be targeted to the party that needs to modify their behaviours or improve their skills in their job description.
The expensive, global “all inclusive” training sessions have not produced a desired ROI return

Hence, you start with an employee engagement survey customized for the “business of the business”. Knowledge of need, by work group, is the key. Measure drivers of engagement as well as business/process/culture/manager functions. IT MUST BE CUSTOMIZED to have attachment to a change process.

5. Could you please highlight key steps necessary to sustain an engaged culture, improve business results and maintain credibility with employees while reinforcing that success involves the “mutual commitment” of both the leadership and employees?

1. Understand and measure the key drivers of the people, correlated to the business, using a customized employee engagement diagnostic with extensive demographics, measuring

a. Engagement of people

b. Customer focused links

c. Culture

d. Process

e. Strategy knowledge

f. Manager and leaders competencies

2. Leadership crystallize the business objectives for the population

3. Make certain the next level of leadership are aligned with each other; then if it’s deployed vertically downward. This is Line Of Sight and the essence of strategy deployment

4. Each manager now becomes the bearer of the “torch”. From the diagnostic, mentoring-coaching each manager to behave better, align the department to the vision and execute the “business of the business” becomes the key to rapid transformation, accountability and sustained results. This is the value chain and service profit chain. It’s the place where customer loyalty begins and ends.

5. To have sustain results, certified, internal experts will continue to work with managers long after the experts leave, using the diagnostic results
6. Please outline the blueprint to leading organizational change in a way that increases employee engagement, and at the same time, improves morale, productivity and retention?

See above

7. Having attended the SHRM Annual Conference in 2010, how do you think professional development conferences and certification contribute to employee engagement and development? In your view, what impact do these have on an employee’s personal and professional advancement?


Competent certified internal consultants can bring organizations to the highest stare of readiness for change. The certification is a speciality centered on building an employee engagement culture, aligned to “the business of the business”. Without it, sustained change will most likely not be achieved. Habit is the most difficult behaviour to change as all behaviours and the actions we take in a stimuli return to a familiar mold without outside intervention. This certification needs to boarder on organizational development consulting training-not off the shelf typical materials.

Question from an HR Professional

An HR Professional asked me:

"Employees have been dis-engaged for sometime now. There have been changes in management to deal with some of the issues which created an environment which facilitated the dis-engagement of the employees. An assessment of the interventions which accompanied the changes in management have not shown that the re-engagement process has successfully commenced. How would you suggest that we now proceed?"

Much similar to the thought process of my last blog post, I wanted to share with you my response:

"In my experience, worker engagement is a state of mind, much like an energy source stored in a battery. A weak charge, when connected to a conduit of the "business of the business" will impact the entire enterprise, including customer delivery. Of course the converse is also true with a fully charged battery.
The key is to find the source of the "weak charge" and fix it...and fast! This starts with information. It can be anywhere...


Information by each demographic needs to include existing culture, managerial style, processes, training needs, communication and trust, a “we” vs. “I” culture, requirements to meet customer needs, manager competency and other alignment measures. The need to slice the information by each demographic group is critical to implementation success; without it, “change” accountability cannot be imposed on those to be held responsible.


This is not a one-on-one effort. There is a huge sense of urgency to get your people engaged as it goes to the essence of the business success"

An Employee Engagement State of Mind

Employee Engagement is just a state of mind and as such is very hard to define, but easy to describe. Think of it as energy stored in a battery awaiting to be plugged into action or to conduit for the energy to ignite positive action.
With Employee Engagement, two concepts must be considered:
1. The drivers, both emotional and rational, of the workforce (EE) and get a way to identify and address the EE issues with each group individually.

2. A means to ensure that when the energy is discharged, it's connected to good, solid business principals and processes, led by a strong leader or Director.
As to #1, any person dealing in trying to bolster EE is doomed to failure unless:
1. You first acquire information as to the cause of the barriers by workgroup

2. Where the barriers are being formed (high, middle or managerial level)

3. A means to identify the "root barriers" by each department/workgroup.

4. recognize that different work groups have different barriers, caused by different things

5. Recognize that the most rapid and global enterprise solutions will be created by the managers (provided they are not toxic as well)

6. A means to give each manager the skills, tools, information and support to dissolvie the barriers . You can't hold anyone accountable to "change" unless you give them the tools to do so. Accountability is the only tool that creates sustained results, especially if know they will be remeasured in 6-8 months.

7. Just because workers are "happy" doesn't make them engaged, so "engaged in what" leads me to point #2

8. The business strategies must be aligned with the effort of engaging the departmental worker, sa managers need information as to what, how and why they need to link the department initiatives to the "main thing" business strategies.
SUMMARY: Engaging a workforce consists of an integrated series of scenes in in a play, all directed by a committed, vocal CEO.

High Performance Engagement

The HPE (High Performance Employee Engagement Survey Instrument) has been designed using the highest standards of researched and organizational change management concepts.  It's long standing that alignment of the workforce to the customer, strategies, leadership and the enterprise is the ideal in maximizing business performance.

The latest research in engagement validates what we already know; that the essence for transformation lies in the hearts, soul and minds of employees. Learning how to get people "engaged" is the foundation for change and any effort to move mountains without the support and participation of the workforce is deemed for possible failure. We've developed a High Performance Engagement tool and for our engagement measures, we selected the research of the Canadian Conference Board, as it represents the most advanced insight in people motivators.

 To that end, High Performance Engagement measures three separate components: Rational Engagement Drivers (measuring retention components), Emotional Engagement Drivers (measuring whether the workers will give that extra discretionary effort to do what needs to be done) and thirdly, Operational Excellence Measures. The last is a customized approach to learning what are the barriers currently existing that prevent easily achieving the leaders stretch goals, or the vision, and to learn why these barriers exist. "Survey Intelligence" means that survey design is built for targeting unique solutions for the client. It's not an off the shelf tool whose value only lies in being able to compare your scores to others without any actionable consequences. The former translates to action, while the latter translates to learning what happened yesterday.

Customization of surveys means accountability. The ability for each workgroup manager to know exactly what they need to do in terms of engaging their employees to perform better, committed and more effectively for the benefit of the organization. It's the path for the workforce to be able to engage themselves in the "business of the business". Profitability or specific outcomes are the reward.

The HPE has been tested and proven to produce the statistics, outcomes, graphics, core relations between leaders and worker, and SWOT to provide the tools for each manager to be able to transform their workgroup into a strong "link in the value chain".



POWERFUL DIAGNOSTICS:
Great data results can only be translated by using a powerful diagnostic tool that allows unlimited analysis capability, right down to each department or demographic level. Each manager gets an x-ray of their department measuring the engagement levels of their work unit, along with a clear picture as to their need requirements the team needs to contribute to the "business of the business", instant action ability for "continuous improvement," become the norm, Each manager will have the ability to know exactly what they need to do, how to modify their actions, behaviors, values, habits processes to motivate a new dynamic workforce aligned to the corporate goals. (the Operational Excellence Measures). Multiply that power by each department, you have the means for rapid realignment for the best interest of the entire organization.
SurveyTelligence's powerful diagnostics are the key. They provide the ability to look below all averages, by each and every workgroup. Built in correlation analysis tool instantly identify and prioritize the specific actions steps for key, predefined drivers, cross tab, gap, SWOT, comparative, aggregation, histogram analysis are all included. This online powerful diagnostic tool sorts billions of data bytes into action steps for each manager and leaders. Its instant, virtual, and produces the most powerful, easy-to-use, graphics for change.


IMPLEMENTATION:
Change management happens when engaged employees are committed in heart, mind, body and soul to take that extra step in "giving all for the gipper". This level of commitment is found in football players, firefighters, Coast Guard personnel, Marines, etc , but seldom in the private sector. In fact in the private sector, their workers' expectations, drivers, motivators and commitment levels are entirely motivated by different expectations. The difference is clear. In the former, leadership is controlled and mandated; in the latter, it needs to be earned, usually from the most immediate supervisor.
Top leadership's role is to dictate the vision; the managers is to execute the business of the vision. Using the analytics of SurveyTelligence and its slicing capability, each manager of each department will have their own picture of the culture of their department, with the action steps to better engage their employees. This is the only effective means to align the people with the enterprise goals. Education, mentoring and coaching is a critical component.
A Train-the-trainer initiative is a rapid, inexpensive way to build an internal competency that will engage and align managers, which effort will endure long after the high priced survey consultants leave. With building an internal professional coaching staff, the ongoing mentoring creates an “accountability" by the managers. They soon know that this transformation is not "another flavor of the month". Senior management is quite serious and sustainability of expectation of change will be re measured.

SurveyTelligence Training Session Feedback

Last month Infotool Inc. held our very first SurveyTelligence Training Session where three prominent business consultants spent two and a half days learning and becoming certified in "Survey Intelligence".

The term "Survey Intelligence" includes organizational assessment building methodologies backed by academics and research linked to achieving organizational goals, data analysis, navigation of Infotool's reporting tools and presentation techniques to really "wow" a client. The participants worked together to present a case study to a Senior VP of a Bank. At the close of the session, each consultant received a plaque certifying each as a "Certified Survey Consultant".

We are excited to share with you some pictures from our session and feedback from our Certified Business Survey Consultants.





"The SurveyTelligence certification workshop was a most beneficial experience. Now in our management consulting practice, geared at improving holistic enterprise competitiveness, we have the right tool to discover key opportunities for aligning any organization and thus deal more effectively with all levels of resistance to change. SurveyTelligence also builds on inherent simplicity and a powerful statistical engine to dissect the critical information from the haystack of data in just seconds, presented with most impressive and useful graphics so management can focus on the important leverage points for organizational changes.

 Having SurveyTelligence will definitely facilitate dealing with resistance for change as we implement organizational and processes improvements for our clients."

-Michael Bolanos Davis ,SurveyTelligence Ecuador, February 20, 2011



"I attended the SurveyTelligence workshop expecting to learn about how I could implement a simple survey tool within my existing consulting practice. I came away from the session with a new vision for what my practice could, should and will be. That vision is now powered by the incredible diagnostic capabilities of InfoTool. It's one that will allow me to help my clients align their corporate strategy with the feet in the street as well as with their internal process and their clients. To experience the power of this program for the first time is to understand that the sky is the limit."

-Bob Woodcock, The Pulse Check, Canada, February 19, 2011



"To learn from the likes of Stan and George Labovitz was an awesome experience.  To learn about the incredible power of the InfoTool diagnostics that Stan developed. To learn how this information will provide powerful survey intelligence about a client’s people and the needs of their organization  was incredible.  Then to learn how to use that data to help them with that intelligence to propel their organization into a stronger, better, more capable group working together to be more engaged, more aligned with a goal of being more profitable/successful.  A stronger strategically sound team will be the end result.  It was a great seminar that I am only so glad I took the opportunity to become part of. "

- Bob Jacobson, Jacobson Solutions, US, March 23, 2011

For more information on our next Certified Survey Business Consulting Course, contact us at info@infotool-online.com or call us at 1(866)616-5552

Our SurveyTelligence Certification Success

Last week we had our first SurveyTelligence Certification Program for successful consultants to understand the power behind our diagnostic software. They learned how to effectively and efficiently build an organizational assesment resulting in short-term and long-term action items for CEO's to align their organization and achieve their corporate goals at every departmental level.    
From the training session, I even amazed myself as to the impact we could have on business growth using the alignment/diagnostic systems that we designed. It's one thing to have a process in your head, but when you see it rolled out to professionals and how their eyes lit up from the strength and promise of their new power , I knew we achieved a breakthrough.
The survey design is the "holy grail" as it created the road map for consultants to follow to guide the client. Using tools like The Structure Tree, Force Field and Contingency diagrams in design, the "achieve the vision roadmap" is shaped. Not only have you crystallized where you want to be, but you have defined, identified and shaped the competencies and barriers to get there. You are using leading indicators, not lagging ones where action is identified, selected, prioritized and demanded.
The Alignment systems thinking research approach we used (Power of Alignment, 1997-everyone got the book) allowed us to understand, see and describe dangers of misalignments, performance variations, and even SWOTS of each workgroup and manager on the journey to the "vision roadmap". The impact on the consultants was amazingly powerful and transformational.
The power of our diagnostics was the key, enabling them to take billions of data bytes see action plans emerge. The most powerful was the Predictive Matrix correlation analysis tool to actually pinpoint and selectt the most effective, impacting, ROI actions for aligning the organization to the "vision roadmap".
Lastly, the implementation plan. A rapid, effective, inexpensive, sustainable implementation plan that long survives long after the consultants leave. This is a gift the client gets which keeps giving.
This was a capsule of the 2.5 days of training; in fact the consultants wanted to extend the sessions to a full 3 days, as they wanted to practice more. The Consultant truly can become a true navigator for their clients by them using impactful survey intelligence managed by powerful diagnostics.
If we can build a business based on these principles, lets do it!

Question:

As a consultant, can you measure the value you bring to your clients? If so, how?

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http://myemail.constantcontact.com/New-Year---New-Success-Story-.html?soid=1102643166220&aid=eJBIckgiQvU