TrueTalk, Inc. Network Feedback Interviews
We all need feedback. It’s the only way we learn about how we’re doing at any task. Golf scores, stepping on the scale, checking our stock portfolio’s performance, all of these are forms of feedback we receive every day.
Feedback indicates connections between actions. We begin receiving simple feedback very early in life: “When I do this, this happens; when I do that, something else happens.” Almost immediately, we use feedback to change our behavior; we learn. And we learn best from feedback that shows patterns. Feedback without patterns feels random; we can’t make connections between actions and consequences. When we become aware of feedback patterns, however, we make reliable predictions about why things happen. (When I exercise several days a week, I lose weight. My handicap has gone down since I started practicing putting.) Awareness of feedback patterns is an important aspect of improving performance.
Business feedback comes in many forms. Financial performance. Employee turnover. Failed acquisitions. New product development time. Alliance problems. But the patterns embedded in that feedback are complex, and often ambiguous. Why are our sales flat? What’s the real reason we’re losing good people? Why does it take us longer to develop new products than our competitors? Why aren’t our acquisitions and partnerships as successful as we hope?
TrueTalk, Inc. developed the “How’re We Doing?”™ interview process to explore questions just like these.
What are “How’re We Doing?”™ interviews? They’re conversations with important people in your organization’s “value network”: the employees, fellow executives, customers, and alliance partners that enable your organization to produce and deliver its goods, services and experiences. About what? About the big things that are on their (and your) minds today. Things like: What’s going right? What’s going wrong? What should we do better? What’s the most important thing for us to think about to win tomorrow?
Feedback about the key issues facing your organization. Things you need to know right now.
But gathering feedback from your network, discovering patterns in that feedback, and using those patterns to guide future actions is easier said than done.
There are two things that make it very difficult to gain in-depth insight into what’s on the minds of the members of your organization’s network. The first is the “Challenger Phenomenon,” the second, the “Thought Onion.”
Problem: How do you learn about the things you need to know?
Most organizations today suffer from some version of the “Challenger Phenomenon.“ This name comes from studies of the conditions surrounding the NASA Challenger accident. In brief, researchers have found that key people in important projects often have information – information critical to the success or failure of that project, sometimes even life threatening information – that they simply fail to express.
Why? Because the organization’s “social system” doesn’t permit them to express it. What is an organization’s “social system?” Every organization has unspoken standards and beliefs about the things that people can and can’t safely say to one another. Each of us watches and listens carefully for clues (some subtle, others pretty obvious) that let us know what an organization’s real (not just stated) rules are.
And then we follow them.
TrueTalk calls the unique constellation of beliefs and practices that govern a network’s relationships, communication, authority, meeting behavior, and so on, its “social system.”
Standard Solution: Surveys or Focus Groups
The conventional wisdom is that doing a survey is the best way to find out what people in an organizational network think.
We’ve found that surveys are a very effective tool for getting a big picture view of important issues. But even the best survey only gives back quantitative measures of the kind of information it seeks. If you ask about employee morale, you’ll get back a number that reflects some measure of employee morale.
But you’re not likely to learn much about employee morale. You won’t hear the voices of the organization’s most passionate supporters or detractors. You won’t get a story that perfectly captures the essence of the current climate. You won’t be surprised by the impact a seemingly meaningless decision had on people in a distant location.
The only way you will learn these things about employee morale is by letting people express themselves openly and honestly.
But, remember the Challenger Phenomenon? Most people won’t express themselves openly and honestly because your social system (which probably isn’t much better or worse than most in 21st century America) either doesn’t encourage or allow them to.
OK, what about focus groups?
Focus groups members, too, are prone to a good deal of social pressure. Not only are members likely to say what they think the focus group leader wants to hear, but they are also likely to say things that don’t accurately represent the full picture of their beliefs or intentions.
That is, people in focus groups often won’t tell you what’s on their mind because they don’t really know what’s on their mind. We call this phenomenon, the Thought Onion.
We are aware of only a small portion of what we know. And, when asked a question, what people say is only the first clue to what they really mean. We all know that our thoughts and feelings about important things are pretty complex. Like the layers of an onion, we have to peel back levels to “get to the bottom” of our thoughts and feelings.
If someone asks you about your dentist, for instance, you’re likely to start off with a simple response, something like, “well, he’s pretty good.”
But what if that person was very interested in your experience of your dental care? Very interested in the nuances of your thoughts and feelings about your dentist? Well, then he or she would have to ask you more questions, to probe more deeply, to help you peel back the layers of the onion: get you to think and talk about the subtler, more elusive aspects of your thoughts about dental care, in general, and your dentist, in particular.
And that’s what we do at TrueTalk.
We know that the Challenger Phenomenon often keeps people from saying what’s on their minds. But they will express themselves openly and honestly if they’re convinced they’re speaking to someone they can trust.
We also know that people don’t always know what they know. But they can be helped to explore their Thought Onion by people who know how to help others discover deeper meaning in their experiences.
Innovative Solution: “How’re We Doing?” Study
Consider the following case study.
A medium-sized consulting firm needed an in-depth understanding of the points of view of its 80 senior executives. The CEO and his team had lots of questions: senior leadership’s view of the organization’s strategic direction, the effectiveness of the integration of a recent acquisition, stock option and other ownership policies, compensation methods, Board effectiveness and so on. Traditionally, some form of survey instrument would have been used to gather and evaluate this group’s opinions in these areas.
Instead, this firm engaged TrueTalk, Inc. to conduct in-depth interviews of the senior group to gain a deeper appreciation of the group’s thoughts, opinions and recommendations. Not only did these conversations yield a thorough appreciation of the questions at hand, they also resulted in new insights into the group’s concerns that mobilized the senior leadership to creatively tackle new solutions.
The “How’re We Doing?”™ Process
The “How’re We Doing?”™ interview is a structured conversation with people in your network who are key to your success.
The first step is identifying whom you’d like to hear from. A project team that looks stuck. A group of key customers. Struggling new hires. The people you really need to make your organization go.
The next step: designing the interview. We’ll work with you to write a set of questions that probe the issues you’re interested in while still allowing people the flexibility to say what’s on their mind. After we’ve agreed on the questions, we’ll help you communicate with the interviewees to introduce the study, and get them thinking about the process.
We’ll then conduct the interviews, ideally face-to-face, but over the phone or via video conference if necessary. Remember, one of the keys to success in feedback is candor. We ensure candor in several ways:
We also make sure that we’re peeling the layers of the Thought Onion in every conversation by:
Next, we carefully analyze the data using proven qualitative research methods.
Payoff
We’ll then compile the feedback, discover the patterns, and help you decide what to do next.
You receive an in-depth presentation of results. We identify key findings: clusters of thoughts and emotions around major patterns and themes. We prioritize themes based on their business importance and their importance for the interviewees. We describe the context for each theme, and explore participant action recommendations. We also provide a database of (de-identified) participant data.
Most importantly, you’ll hear from network members in their own words. We help participants express themselves in depth so that so that you get the full benefit of participants’ experiences. Our experience shows that a combination of patterns (themes) and texture (direct quotes), thoughts and emotions, makes for the most powerful feedback, the kind of feedback that is most likely to prompt action.
Finally, we’ll help you decide what to do about the feedback you’re received. One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is asking people what they think, what’s important to them, an then doing nothing about what they learn. We’ll help you establish “Effort/Impact Priorities” and design a model for addressing the issues raised in the feedback.
Growing Into The Future
We believe your network’s strength defines business success today. And, carefully soliciting, analyzing and acting on candid feedback strengthens the relationships that make up your network.
Let TrueTalk help you grow into your future by taking full advantage of the power of your business network.
Permanent link