Employee Engagement 2010: How I would change Gallup’s Q12 to the Q13

Q13: Get stronger and drop words like someone, seem, feel, and opportunity

Gallup contributions. Don’t get me wrong, Gallup has made phenomenal contributions to employee engagement. Without their work, employee engagement would not be the phenomenon it is today. Gallup has smarter people than me doing survey research and their Q12 has stood the test of time but I got to thinking what I would do if I was to revise the survey. You have to realize this would be a big challenge for Gallup as they already have so much statistical data based on questions developed quite a few years ago – you can almost become a prisoner of your success.

Actual Q12. Their Q12 is famous and often touted as the premier engagement survey questions. To read the Gallup Q12, click here.

Galloping Around the 2010 Clubhouse turn…

Compare and contrast. I encourage you to leave the actual Q12 page open as I offer my revision. In the age of open source and free these questions are copyrighted and I respect Gallup’s copyright. Read Gallup’s statements then read my response.

Survey says… By the way, I don’t plan on doing a survey any too soon as my focus is on making adjustment and improvements in employee engagement for the benefit of all not in creating, administering or conducting another survey. And if I was to use a survey, even without the suggested revisions, I would certainly consider using Gallup’s approach. Also, please respect Gallup’s copyright — you cannot just use their survey without obtaining their approval.

Stronger – remove qualifiers – add a question I would eliminate or strengthen the use of the words  “someone,” “seem,” “feel,” and “opportunity” embedded in over half the questions. In addition I would ensure that personal responsibility would be part of the Q13 engagement equation by adding a 13th question.

My suggested revisions:

1. Expectations. Not a bad question but I would slant it more towards  acting on what is expected than knowing what is expected. I can know what is expected but not engage in it.

2. Tools.  Tools are important and I believe they will get even more important in the coming decade.  I would trust that I would also have the gumption to ask for the tools not just have the tools. We need to be proactive in our approach to work.

3. Opportunity for your best.  I would like this question stronger (it is a strength question after all) it is not about an opportunity to do your best but to actually DO YOUR BEST EVERYDAY. Engagement is about having a strong sense of personal agency.

4. 7 day recognition.  I think recognition is key but receiving recognition in the past seven days is tepid or anemic recognition at best. I would like to see recognition (both received and offered) every day and especially for great work.

5. Does someone seem to care? Drop the word someone and seem. Either they care or they don’t we don’t need any seem. Even Yoda said “do or no do, there is no try.” Caring needs to be powerful, authentic, and expressed.

6. Does someone encourage me? I know this is an anonymous survey and I know you can’t be really specific but I would change the word someone to WHO. Who at work encourages your development? How do they do this. As long as people and their responses to engagement are anonymous the survey may be part of the problem not the solution.

7. Counting opinions? Once again, get rid of the word seem. Opinions should not just seem to count, they should count

8. Job Feel important? I think the mission should go beyond having people feel to knowing in their marrow that their job is important.

9. Coworkers working? I like having committed co-workers but I would ask how do you specifically hold others accountable for good work? By the way, to me accountability is not about checking up on people, a top-down relationship, it is about checking in with people. We are each responsible for own engagement and accountable for other worker’s engagement.

10. Good buddy? I love the idea of having friends at work, not sure I need a best friend. My best friends are from grade nine and grade 12 even though I am in my mid fifties. My best friendships are  not based on people I work with. If your best friend is at work perhaps you are working too much. I would change question 10 to fostering and experiencing strong supportive relationships and knowing I am part of a caring and valuable community rather that a focus on best friend. This is the age of social media and we need a stronger and more pervasive  social focus than merely having a best friend at work.

11. A progress conversation in the past 6 months? Are you kidding me?  We should be talking about progress on a weekly, daily, even an hourly basis. Time to refresh this idea with some of Jane Dutton’s great work on energizing organizations through high quality connections (these only need a few seconds) and hold engaging conversations about performance and progress at least every 6 hours not every 6 months.
    

12. Growth Opp once a year? Drop the opportunity – it must happen. I believe a year time span in this new decade for learning and growth is like a decade when the survey began. I want to know if you are learning every day and that work is helping you to become more than you were.

13. I know there is no Q13 or question 13 in the Q12 but I would add one more for the decade ahead. The Q12 engagement questions puts engagement in the hands of the organization, manager, leaders, friends, peers, etc. What about us? We are responsible for our own engagement. Question 13 should ask: What have you done today and this week to ensure your own engagement and foster engagement in others and what will you do right after completing this survey to improve engagement.

The decade ahead. What do you think? Do we need new employee engagement questions for the coming decade or should we place our bets on past performance? And what about having some fresh new approaches in the decade to learning about engagement rather than a survey? I hope that Gallup with their experiences and resources will be leading the way by using more experimental controlled studies that go beyond corrleations of engagement to causation. I also hope they will make use of the new neurbiological and technological tools being developed by MIT to assess honest signals and engagement in real time. I have so much appreciated their past performance and hope they will be a leader in employee engagement in 2010 and beyond.