Employee Engagement: What questions are you asking?
By David Zinger on Apr 21, 2008 in Employee Engagement
Yes by David Zinger
Are you asking the right questions to achieve higher or more significant levels of employee engagement. Too often we focus on the “how to” without fully considering what matters and why it matters.
I have always learned significant ideas and perspectives when I read the works of Peter Block. If you have not read his work, I recommend that you read: Flawless Consulting, The Empowered Manager, and Stewardship.
In the book, The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters, Peter chastises management for asking how questions at the neglect of asking yes questions.
Change your questions and you will change your answers.
Feel the power of yes by changing:
- How do we do it? to What refusal have I been postponing?
- How long will it take? to What commitment am I willing to make?
- How much does it cost? to What is the price I am willing to pay?
- How do you get those people to change? to What is my contribution to the problem I am concerned with?
- How do we measure it? to What is the crossroad at which I find myself at this point in my life/work?
- How are other people doing it successfully? to What do we want to create together?
I think a paradox here is how deep the “how to” mindset is fixed in our brains. After I wrote this, I realized I had turned the yes questions into how-to questions and I know that is not what Peter intended. Rather than a list of questions to rapidly change the workplace I encourage you to ponder the bold questions and let the answers evolve out of authentic reflection and dialogue.
Terrence Seamon | Apr 21, 2008 | Reply
I am also a fan of Block, David. But there is at least one “How” question that I think we ought to keep: How do you know?
Terry
Jessica | Apr 21, 2008 | Reply
Dear David,
I really enjoyed your blog on engagement and asking the right questions. I think that Peter Block’s book is a great suggestion. I really like his focus on being authentic. Sometimes it seems that management isn’t really sure how to ask the right questions and sometime they are afraid of the answers. I read this article on top ten questions about employee surveys which sometimes are how we try to collect a large amount of opinions from everyone. If you’d like to check it out….
http://www.organizedchange.com/tencommonlyaskedquestionsaboutemployee%20surveys.htm
Hope you like it and thanks for a great blog.
Jessica Brown, MS
David Zinger | Apr 23, 2008 | Reply
Terry: An excellent question: How do you know?
David
David Zinger | Apr 23, 2008 | Reply
Jessica,
Thank you for you comment. I appreciated the link to 10 questions for surveys. It was helpful.
David