In recent months, one of my clients invited their employees to complete an online and confidential survey that captured how they think and feel about working for the company. First off, conducting such a survey is brave for any organisation. After all, they are setting themselves up to be told things they might not want to hear. It is also a very scary prospect for managers in the organisation because whatever employees say is going to reflect on them. Furthermore, it is scary for the respondents. What if it turns out that their responses are not so confidential after all? What if their managers don’t like what they say? Any anyway, is there any point? Will what they say have any impact whatsoever?
It has been my experience that the first time an organisation conducts such a survey it has been catalysed by a sense (at senior levels in the business) that the organisational climate or leadership culture is not what they want it to be. Embarking on such a survey then has the objective of setting the baseline – the starting point that will form the basis of whatever work will be done to get the climate or culture aligned with their vision for the organisation. From my perspective, this is exciting – but then I am not inside the organisation, and the survey makes no comments about my own leadership style!
For many, in fact MOST, managers in such an organisation, the delivery of the results of such a survey is very stressful and threatening – especially if the results are critical of the climate or leadership culture. It is particularly stressful and threatening if there is a strong theme of fear and blame within the organisation. Do you remember the THREAT – ANXIETY – DEFENSE response I have described in previous articles? The results of the survey create a THREAT of appearing incompetent (as a leader); this provokes immense ANXIETY and the resulting response is likely to be DEFENSIVE.
This DEFENSIVE behaviour could take the form of:

• Dismissing the feedback and criticising the instrument as being poorly worded or misleading;
• Dismissing the feedback and criticising the respondents or blaming the timing;
• Trying to figure out who said what and going after them.

All of these responses are going to destroy whatever fragile trust there was that made so many employees respond to the survey in the first place. Their reaction is likely to be something like: “Well you asked for the feedback. You said you really wanted it. You said it would be safe to be honest. Now look what you do. I will never fall for this again.” And they all go back beneath the parapet and seethe with resentment – the exact opposite of what the survey was intended to achieve.
I’d like to offer another perspective. What if we accept that there is nothing to be gained by debating the merits of the feedback? There is nothing to be gained by hunting down whoever said what. Whatever flaws the instrument may have, the feedback is the feedback. It is telling us how people think and feel about working here. We wanted to know, and now we know. We may not like it – but at least we know.
The next questions are:

• How do we want people to think and feel about working here?
• What do we leaders need to change or do differently to make sure that happens?
• What is our action plan?
• When will we run the instrument again to see how we are doing?

Imagine how your teams would respond if they saw you responding in this way. I would anticipate the following:

• Huge relief that there is not going to be a backlash;
• Increased trust;
• Admiration and respect for the leader who is able to take it on the chin non-defensively;
• A willingness to work together to create a climate that is in alignment with the vision;
• Greater transparency and openness;
• A real improvement in organisational climate and leadership culture.

If you do not believe your organisation will do something constructive with the results of an employee survey, it may be better not to do it at all. Handling the results badly will obviously do damage, but don't underestimate the damage that ensues when NOTHING useful is done with the information. Doing nothing is the best way to get employees to disengage - it indicates that management just doesn't care. It is a real gesture of contempt towards employees.
John Gottman, the world-renowned expert on relationships, calls contempt one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (along with defensiveness, flooding and stonewalling) - it absolutely ALWAYS results in relationship breakdowns - whether it is in personal relationships or working relationships.
Employee surveys should really be seen as integral to the organisation's approach to organisational and leadership development, with the intention being to grow and develop the organisation and its people towards ever greater alignment with the vision and values. In this sense it can be a really growthful experience for everyone.
So what is to be done if you are about to embark on an employee survey, and you are concerned about ensuring that managers ALL handle the feedback well and respond to it appropriately? I have found coaching to be a profoundly valuable resource to managers in the following senses:
1. It helps managers to process and make sense of feedback that they might be disappointed, upset or confused about;
2. It is a forum in which they can think through and decide how to discuss the results of the feedback with their teams;
3. It is a developmental environment in which they can attend to their own growth areas so that they can become the leaders they need to become - if the feedback was not what they would have wished;
4. It is a place where they can decide how to regularly check in with their teams on how they are progressing.

So if this resonates with you and you'd like to consider how to rollout your next employee survey, drop me a mail on [email protected] and let's talk about it.

To quote Scott from her website:

Obnoxious Aggression™ is what happens when you challenge but don’t care. It’s praise that doesn’t feel sincere or criticism that isn’t delivered kindly.
Ruinous Empathy™ is what happens when you care but don’t challenge. It’s praise that isn’t specific enough to help the person understand what was good or criticism that is sugarcoated and unclear.
Manipulative Insincerity™ is what happens when you neither care nor challenge. It’s praise that is non-specific and insincere or criticism that is neither clear nor kind.
 
Radical Candour is the quality of feedback that happens when you skilfully challenge directly within the context of a relationship in which your personal care is clearly apparent. It is not enough for you to know that you care. It is important for your team member or colleague to also know that you care.

Radical candour is the quadrant within with the Coaching Manager belongs. Coaching Managers I have worked with have had some or all of the following good intentions in adopting coaching as their style:

• To be a good manager
• To take a good team and make it really great
• To enable team members to achieve their potential
• To help average and weak performers to improve
• To get people to think for themselves
• To foster innovation in the team
• To build relationships
• To develop people in support of their career aspirations

We really can’t engage well on any of these topics if there isn’t a relationship characterised by care and complete honesty between you and your team members.

One of the most important leadership lessons that I have learned in my years of working with managers is that if you want your team members to be able to take honest feedback and guidance, you yourself need to be able to take it. A second aspect of this is that you also need to be able to take it publicly. Good managers hold themselves to the injunction to praise publicly and criticise privately – well you don’t have that luxury.

This is actually something of a blessing in that it presents you with the opportunity to model or demonstrate healthy responses to criticism. When your team sees you take criticism in an open and non-defensive manner, you become better able to expect that they will take criticism or constructive feedback in a non-defensive way. If you genuinely want to elevate the levels of honesty between yourself and your team, you need to put yourself directly in line for feedback.
Also from the wonderful Kim Scott book, Radical Candor, comes this fabulous question that invites feedback on your own impact on your team: What can I do or stop doing that will make it easier to work with me?

What a wonderful question! But how you respond is everything. On no account should you defend, justify, explain or retaliate. If you do that, you will never get useful feedback again. Appropriate responses include:

• Thank you for that. It must have taken courage to go first.
• Tell me more so that I understand you better.
• That’s really useful! I didn’t realise I was doing that!
• I will definitely give that a try. Thank you.
• You’ve given me something to think about. Can I go away and think about this and then we can pick it up again next time? (And make sure that you do!)

Some of the feedback will be easy to take. Some of it will be more difficult. When the feedback is difficult, make sure to press your internal Pause Button. Breathe. Smile. Say thank you.

When the feedback is difficult and you feel defensive, take time to think about it. Chat with a colleague who you trust to be honest with you. Ask for their input on what they have observed in your behaviour. Ask their advice on how you might respond. Prepare your response. Test your response with your trusted colleague. When you are happy that your response will come across as thoughtful and mature, go back to the team. Tell the team what you intend doing with the feedback and how they can support you in your efforts.

Demonstrating your ability to take feedback or criticism well publicly sets the foundation for you to be able to give feedback privately to your team members, and use that feedback to support their growth. You have shown how it is done; you have demonstrated that you and your team are taking a journey together; you have demonstrated humility as well as courage; you have earned a special kind of respect; and you have demonstrated a respectful response.

In the next article, I will talk about having an evaluative discussion with team members that will be the basis for a coaching journey you could take with them.

In the meantime, I highly recommend that you read Radical Candor by Kim Scott (ISBN 978150984538590100) available in print, e-book and audiobook. Share it with your team! Use it as the basis for some really authentic conversations.
 
About the Author:
 
Belinda Davies is a business coach with special interests in strategy and leadership. She has been a coach since 2002, having been in the business of people development since 1986. She is a credentialed COMENSA Master Practitioner.

Contact details:
Email     [email protected]
Mobile  0825519504
Website: www.leadershipsolutions.co.za

In previous articles, we have dealt with the impact of hope (inspiration), discipline, influence, and self-control on a leader’s ability to re-connect with the vision and to be an inspirational leader.  If you would like to read these articles, please follow this link.

A leader is a dealer in trust. It is through the actions of the leader that an organisation becomes a safe place to be –safe enough for team members to take risks and push the boat out. The team needs to know that the leader has their back. Only if they know this will they put themselves on the line, take tough decisions and push the limits of their creativity and innovation. In a safe environment, where team members are acting in unison, guided by a compelling vision, and supported by a trustworthy leader, people will drop their guard and suspend their need to cover their backs – only when this is true will they dig really deep and give their all. If they believe that they may be hung out to dry, they will inevitably play it safe – and sure fire guarantee of mediocrity.

When was the last time a really big idea came from your team? When was the last time your team challenged you or disagreed vigorously with you? Or do they play it safe and remain polite? Not a good sign. Without vigorous discussion and wrestling with challenges and ideas, nothing truly great will ever come from your team. The best you can expect is vanilla. It’s up to you.

When did your team last bring you bad news? How did you respond? Do you hear everything you need to hear or do you sometimes get nasty surprises? What have you done to contribute to distrust in the team? What have you done to make it safe to tell it like it is? It is up to you.

Creating an environment in which trust is implicit is incredibly challenging and the success of this rests on consistency.  Let me know what impact these exercises have on establishing, building and increasing trust within your team.