This Week’s Streak: If You Want to Know the Truth, Don’t Ask
Seriously, Undercover Boss is chock full of good lessons if you would tune in – the season finale airs on Sunday, April 11th. It gets the juices flowing with new and different ways to help bridge the gap between what Corporate thinks the company needs and what is truly going on on the front lines.
Ironically what CEOs find is they need to give those on the front lines a lot more credit about how to do their jobs in the best possible way – they know how to do it. Now, the question becomes, how does Corporate get its hands on this information – especially if they don’t actually go undercover?
Let’s use the example of a company that values safety and wants to increase it’s safety numbers. If they are not sure how to do this they can identify areas in their company with high safety ratings. Then they will want to find out what is different about Region A that makes them safer than those in Region B. How do they do this? They crunch numbers, look at variables, ask questions. They ask the General Manager in Region A, “Everything else being the same, you guys have the highest safety rating within our company. What do you know or do that we can share in order to increase safety in all regions?”
The General Manager of Region A identifies the employees with the highest safety ratings in his region and asks them how they personally maintain such a high safety level. The employees are not forthcoming about sharing such information for personal reasons (which unfortunately are not the same reasons the GM is thinking). The GM has started off on the right foot – they have identified that this type of success starts at a personal level with each employee.
If you have tried the approach of asking the person directly and you did not get the (honest) answer you think you wanted, there is another route you could take. This is what Undercover Boss knows: go about it covertly if you want honest feedback.
Thus, if Corporate wants the truth from employees and customers, they need to use a combination of indirect methods (intuitive and subconscious), not just direct questions, surveys, and reviews, to truly get to the bottom of things – if they are willing to be that honest with themselves. Once you get your answers, be prepared that the new information will likely require you to change something about the way you are currently doing things (your policies and procedures).
Check-In on your last Request: What did you do? Do you wish you would have taken on a little bit less or stretched yourself a little more?
Request (something to move you forward this week): Identify something you want to know, who you think can give you the answer, and how you can indirectly approach them about it – even if it’s over time and takes a little longer than you expect.
Inquiry (a thought to ponder and see if anything comes up around it): How can I get to where I want to go or get the information I seek more effectively?
