Talent Development 16 Surveys That Work

November 8, 2020

Section 2.8 in the CPTD Certification program for ATD is Evaluating Impact. Section B reads, “Skill in creating data collection tools, for example questionnaires, surveys, and structured interviews.”

For about 5 years, I taught a graduate course called Experimental Design. The course was part of a curriculum leading to a Masters Degree in Organization Learning and Human Resources Development.

In preparation for writing this brief article, I went back and reviewed my slide deck for the course. It was 200 slides long, and many of the slides were heavy with statistical techniques. Obviously, I will need to skim the surface in this short summary article.

In the course, we studied how well-intended surveys often miss the mark and produce bogus results. We also studied the antidotes.

Why Surveys Fail

There are many reasons why surveys fail. I will list some of the more common reasons here and then describe the typical antidotes.

1. Survey too long and complex – one reason for poor data is because people get turned off by too burdensome and too many surveys. When people are angry about too many surveys, they give responses that do not reflect their true feelings.

2. Changes made are not evident – if leaders do not stress that a change is being made because of an employee survey, people will believe their input was ignored. The common misconception sounds like this, “They make us fill out all these ridiculous surveys, but nothing ever changes.”

3. Survey not valid – incorrectly designed surveys often do not measure the thing they are trying to measure. Surveys must be statistically validated to be useful.

4. Survey not reliable – If you would repeat the survey a second time, you would get a different result?

5. Questionable anonymity – If people believe there is some secret way management can find out who said what, then the instrument will not give accurate results. People will respond in ways they think management wants to hear.

6. No clear objective – When people are asked to fill out a survey, they need to know ahead of time why they are being asked to participate and what to expect.

7. Questions not clear – Often the wording of questions leaves people wondering what is really meant by the questions. In this case, you will get guesswork rather than valid data.

8. Leading Questions – Sometimes the way questions are worded leads to skewed data. For example, a political survey might ask, “Are you frustrated by the lies being spread by my opponent?”

Antidotes

I will list the antidotes to the problems in the same order.

1. Make sure your survey is user friendly. Take the survey yourself and ask if you would take the time to do this instrument justice on your most busy day. A good rule of thumb is to be able to fill out the information in less than 10 minutes.

2. Make sure you get back to everyone who responded with the results of the survey. Also, tie all changes made to the survey results, so people are aware of the connection.

3. Test if the survey is valid. The only way you can tell is a survey is measuring what you are trying to measure is to use a statistical analysis of the data. There are five different types of validity (Content, Construct, Concurrent, Criterion, and Predictive). Get help from someone qualified to measure validity. Don’t just wing it.

4. Test if the survey is reliable. This involves trial runs of the survey with different groups under different conditions. The survey needs to produce consistent information to be reliable. Another method is to use a split-half technique. Again, get help if you are not an expert in this area.

5. Insuring anonymity is tricky – The best method I have found to get people to really believe the survey is anonymous is to select a skeptical person from the population to help reduce the data into usable form. The skeptic will let others know that there was no secret means by which management knew who said what.

6. Clarity of Objective – This is a matter of good survey design. It is not just a simple matter of generating some questions and handing out the survey. It must be done with care and solid logic. The way the survey is introduced (typically with an email or letter) is critical. Otherwise you have garbage in garbage out.

7. Test your questions for understandability – This is usually done in the final design phase. You ask people how they interpreted the question. It is not uncommon for many people to be baffled by the wording. Check it out carefully.

8. Avoid leading questions – do not telegraph the requested answer by the way a question is worded. Like don’t ask “Would you like a yummy pizza?”

These areas are general, but they do show how generating a survey is not so simple as most people believe. If a survey is going to generate valuable information for the organization, it needs to be constructed well and administered correctly.

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations.


Talent Development 15 Coaching Supervisors

November 1, 2020

Section 2.7 in the CPTD Certification program for ATD is Coaching. Section B reads, “Skill in coaching supervisors and managers on methods and approaches for supporting employee development.”

I have always had a keen interest in coaching of supervisors and managers. I believe their role is pivotal, and their situation is often challenging. Throughout my career, I spent roughly 40% of my time actually working with supervisors in groups and individually to develop and sharpen their skills.

Successful Supervisor Series

From 2016 to 2018 I wrote a series of 100 blog articles specifically aimed at creating more successful supervisors. I am sharing an index of the entire program here so you can view the topics covered. The index has a link to each article on my blog in case you may be interested in reading up on certain topics. Note: After you call up the document, you will need to click on “enable editing” at the top of the page in order to open the links below.

Use for Training

You may wish to select articles at random or as a function of your interest, or an alternative would be to view one article a day for 100 days. You could use the series as a training program for supervisors.

In that case, I recommend having periodic review sessions to have open discussion on the points that are made. There will likely be counter points to some of my ideas that apply to your situation.

Some examples relating to Employee Development

Most of this series deals with the development of the supervisors themselves, but many of the articles deal with supervisors supporting employee development. I will share links to 10 specific articles here as examples from the series:

9. Motivation

40. Engaging People

47. Coaching People on Money Problems

57. Building a High Performance Team

70. Reduce Drama

78. Trust and the Development of People

82. Trust Improves Productivity

88. Better Team Building

89. Repairing Damaged Trust

93. Creating Your Own Development Plan

I hope this information has been helpful to you. Best of luck on your journey toward outstanding Supervision and Leadership.

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations.




Talent Development 4 Identify Goals, Gaps, and Opportunities

July 19, 2020

A major area in talent development is titled “performance improvement.”

Leaders need to hone the skill of performance analysis to identify the goals, gaps, and opportunities that will allow the culture to advance.

I do a lot of leadership development work in organizations of all types and sizes. A typical scenario has me meet with a CEO who laments that things are not going very well.

The organization is lagging behind in performance, and the CEO wants me to come in and train the supervisors and managers on how to do a better job of leading.

I explain that no two of my development efforts are the same. Each one is a custom effort designed to fit this particular situation and group of people.

Many leadership development consultants have their vinyl notebooks already made up when they walk in the door. They offer cookie-cutter programs that sort of fit a general population. Unfortunately these are not very effective.

Instead, I sit with several of the leaders and managers as well as some of the front-line workers to get a first-hand view of what has been going on. I have them all fill out a questionnaire containing roughly 80 different areas where we might consider some development work.

A few examples of the areas are:
• Reducing conflict
• Effective change leadership
• Building a culture of trust
• Improving teamwork
• Better listening skills

Each person has to rate each item on a scale of zero to three. 0 = no need, 1= routine need, 2= important now, and 3= urgent to improve now. The sum of all the opinions gives me a start to know which development areas would be most helpful.

Then I meet with the HR Manager and ask to see any extant data the organization has such as recent quality of worklife surveys, turnover rates, discipline patterns, leadership evaluations, etc.

In some cases where there appears to be trust issues, I have a separate trust survey that not only tells me the level of trust by area, but also what parts of the trust equation need the most work in each area.

For example, the issue of accountability often shows up as an issue that is impacting trust.

I then take all of that data and go back to my office where I have about 120 possible modules of training that could be done. Based on the data I just assembled, I run a “comb” through all of those modules.

Out pops a subset of gaps and opportunities for improvement efforts. It takes me only a couple hours to do this analysis, and I never charge the customer for this service. I go back with the CEO and show him or her the analysis I just completed.

Then I reveal a program that is targeted specifically for that organization and the people in it. By that time, I have a good idea how many sessions will be needed and how much calendar time will be required, so I can give a rough quote for how much it will cost. I share the custom outline of a program with the CEO.

Most times the CEO is flabbergasted with how perfect a fit the development effort is for that particular group. I recall one CEO listening intently as I reviewed a page with seven recommendations for training. He looked at the page and wrote BINGO next to my list.

By this time, the CEO is totally sold on the training, so I give a final quote and begin the specific design work. I customize all the material in the modules for the specific industry so the training is done in their “language.”

I design the various experiential activities such as role plays, body sculpture, games, stories, illusions etc. to fit with this specific group (for example, a training program for a hospital will be different from one for a financial service group).

I then get the materials assembled and go back to discuss how to schedule the training to be most user-friendly to that group. Then we proceed to do the development program I have designed.

My track record using this method is quite high, because I have listened to the client carefully and designed the specific interface that is laser-focused on their needs.



The preceding information was adapted from the book Leading with Trust is like Sailing Downwind, by Robert Whipple. It is available on http://www.leadergrow.com.

Robert Whipple is also the author of The TRUST Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change. Bob consults and speaks on these and other leadership topics. He is CEO of Leadergrow Inc. a company dedicated to growing leaders.



Body Language 84 Zoom Boom 1 Eye Contact

May 11, 2020

This is the first of four short articles highlighting the differences from in-person body language and body language when using a virtual platform.

Clearly, having the ability to see the faces of individuals, particularly in a group setting, is far superior to having a conference call where people cannot see each other.

However, it is wrong to suggest that the virtual experience is just as good as actually being in the same room as the other people. It is not.

This series of short articles will highlight areas where we need to recognize the limitations, even while we enjoy the benefits of the various platforms for virtual meetings.

The first area is eye contact. The most critical connection between people when interfacing in person is eye contact. When you look at another person’s eyes, you can detect how sincere and authentic the person is.

We read the eyes of other people all the time without even being conscious of the depth of information contained in them. We may have a first meeting with an individual and come away with a cautionary feeling about him by the way he made eye contact.

In “The Gambler,” Kenny Rogers sings, “He said, Son, I’ve made a life out of readn’ people’s faces, knowin’ what the cards were by the way they held their eyes.”

Most people in organizations do not take it to that extreme, but we do take away a huge amount of data by watching other people’s eyes.

In a virtual setting, it is often difficult to even see the other person’s eyes. First of all, if the person is wearing glasses, the glare from the reflection of the screen or ambient light at least partially blocks a clear view of the eyes.

Second, people rarely look directly into the camera when working in a virtual meeting. They are focusing their attention on the pictures of the other people or data displayed on screen. Depending on where the camera is placed, that may cause the person to rarely show his eyes.

Direct eye contact between any two people in a virtual meeting is extremely rare.

Third, when there are many people in the meeting, each image is so small that it is hard to see the expression in the eyes. You can gather some information, but it is not nearly what would be seen if you were meeting in person.

What to do

If the information in the eyes is less than ideal, you need to substitute other factors to understand what is going on with the other person. Tone of voice will let you know if the person is feeling happy, angry, sarcastic, confused, or several other emotions.

In addition, pay attention to what the other person is saying. Is she being negative, grumpy, and hostile, or is she buoyant, happy, and flexible?

Body position can give you a clue to the attitude. Is the person sitting up straight or slouched over holding her head up with the palm of her hand?

Facial expression is another tip off to what is going on with the person. Even though the eye contact may not be ideal, you still have the ability to read what is going on. Look for clues in the configuration of the mouth and the eyebrows.

You can ask open-ended questions that call for the person to reveal how she is feeling at the moment.

I will explore other differences or compromises in future articles.


This is a part in a series of articles on “Body Language” by Bob Whipple “The Trust Ambassador.”


Interview with Stephen M.R. Covey

May 8, 2020

In this 15-minute interview with Stephen M.R. Covey, we discuss how trust within organizations may be impacted by the COVID-19 situation.

Stephen posits that there may be an “amplification” effect where if trust within an organization was strong before the quarantine, it will likely emerge as strong or stronger after people return to work.

Conversely, if trust was weak before the hiatus, it will likely become weaker while people are out and when they return to work once it is safe to do so.

The good news is that if leaders do a good job of communicating well and often, it can actually help repair weak trust. He urges leaders to be authentic and talk straight. Create a safe environment for people.

His strong advice for leaders is that “you cannot talk your way out of a problem you behaved your way into.” He suggests that during the hiatus, leaders need to intentionally extend trust.

Check out this interview and let me know if you agree with his ideas. Here is the link.