ZingTrain » June 2008

Keeping Your Talented People

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:27:12 +0000

From Gallup Organization Research, as reported in First, Break All the Rules.

Based on interviews with over 80,000 managers, it was determined that the core elements needed to attract, focus and keep the most talented employees could be simplified down to the following 12 questions:

Do I know what is expected of me at work?
Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
At work, do my opinions seem to count?
Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?
Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
Do I have a best friend at work?
In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?
At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?

How to Get Great Feedback

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:25:16 +0000

Open Forum Process

The facilitator groups participants into table-sized teams (5-8). If people are already sitting at tables, just have them work in those groups.

The instructions to each group are:
Select a facilitator (to keep the group on task and make sure everyone gets a change to talk), a scribe (to write down the group’s questions), and a spokesperson (to ask the group’s questions).

Discuss:

What you heard
What your reaction is
What questions of clarification you have
Prioritize your group’s questions and be prepared to ask the top priority question.

Give the groups a specific time to do this work. Typically 10-20 minutes, depending on the complexity of what has been presented and the overall time available.

When the small groups are ready to ask questions instruct them to limit their questions to “one at a time” and not multiple part questions. The facilitator randomly moves from group to group to be sure that as many groups as possible can ask their question. If the panel is made up of more than one presenter, ask the spokesperson to name the person to whom they are addressing the question.

The Open Forum panel is made up of the topic expert or experts. Instructions to the panelists include encouraging them to speak from the heart and from their personal experience. If they don’t have an answer to a particular question, it is fine to say, “Great question! I hadn’t thought about that.” The facilitator then records the question on a “parking lot.” At the end of the Open Forum, the leader lets the group know how/when the parking lot questions will be addressed.

The question and answer part of the process typically takes about 20-45 minutes.

Open Forum is a tool for clarifying what has been presented, not for figuring out an action plan, so questions should focus on getting more detail on the “what” rather than on the “how.” The facilitator’s job is to identify “how” questions and guide the groups towards a focus on “what.” The “how” (or action planning) will be more effective if everyone is clear on the “what” (the vision of success).

Getting Feedback from Staff

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:23:03 +0000

For the past couple of OnTrack issues, we’ve been talking about communication within organizations – getting information out to staff and sharing information between managers who work different shifts. But getting information from staff is also very important.

I love the idea I just heard from Shawn Askinosie, of Askinosie Chocolate in Springfield, MO. After Shawn attended ZingTrain’s “Small Giants” seminar, he went back and revisited his mission statement – which had gotten “buried in my business plan someplace.” He labeled the existing statement as a draft and posted it in the company’s work room. According to Shawn, “People emailed me about it. People met with me about it. We then decided on a final mission statement… Here is the cool part. We keep the mission posted in our main chocolate making room. We write on it every week. Anybody can write whatever they feel has happened that relates to the mission. So in that sense it is interactive.”

Those of you who have been to a seminar in the last couple of years have probably participated in a structured question and answer session that we call Open Forum, but we use the format regularly in large staff meetings and departmental huddles alike. When you’ve presented a vision for an organization change or shared a bunch of information on any topic and want to generate discussion and questions, Open Forum is a great tool to use. For an overview of the process, check out the ZingTools.

Another systematic way to get feedback and input from employees is to conduct a regular staff survey. Here at Zingerman’s we’ve been using our “Feelin’ Groovy” survey since 2004. We use the 12 questions that the Gallup organization has validated through their extensive research and that are explained in the book, First, Break All the Rules. After all, why reinvent the wheel when we can learn from something that has worked for someone else? (see ZingTools for the list of Gallup survey questions)

Since we started doing a staff survey, we’ve offered it quarterly, and although we value the information that the survey results provide, we’ve also been frustrated that we are unable to effectively act on the results before it’s time for the next survey. So we’ve just decided to shift from 4 surveys a year to 2 surveys a year. Our goals are to 1) minimize “survey burnout” that we think is having a negative impact on participation rates and 2) give us a better chance of seeing results of changes made in response to the results reflected in the subsequent survey.

I’m interested in how many of you are doing regular staff surveys and, if so, whether you are using the Gallup questions (as many seminar participants tell us they are) or some other format. Do you have other ways of soliciting feedback and communication from your staff? What have you found particularly useful? What have you done differently in your business because of the feedback you’ve gathered? Please write to us at zingtrain@zingermans.com.

Thanks for reading!