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You are here: Home / Employee Engagement / Employee Engagement: What questions are you asking?

Employee Engagement: What questions are you asking?

April 21, 2008 by David Zinger 4 Comments

Yes by David Zinger

david-zinger-jan-08.jpg

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.

serious air

Change your questions and you will change your answers.

Feel the power of yes by changing:

  1. How do we do it? to What refusal have I been postponing?
  2. How long will it take? to What commitment am I willing to make?
  3. How much does it cost? to What is the price I am willing to pay?
  4. How do you get those people to change? to What is my contribution to the problem I am concerned with?
  5. How do we measure it? to What is the crossroad at which I find myself at this point in my life/work?
  6. 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.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement

Comments

  1. Terrence Seamon says

    April 21, 2008 at 11:20 am

    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

  2. Jessica says

    April 21, 2008 at 4:37 pm

    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

  3. David Zinger says

    April 23, 2008 at 6:23 am

    Terry: An excellent question: How do you know?
    David

  4. David Zinger says

    April 23, 2008 at 6:24 am

    Jessica,
    Thank you for you comment. I appreciated the link to 10 questions for surveys. It was helpful.
    David

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David Zinger

Email: david@davidzinger.com
Phone 204 254 2130

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