Surveys can disclose issues…but sometimes they make you lose your marbles.

Traditional long surveys are ………………

• a)   boring  
• b)   too long    
• c)   agonizing   
• d)   of questionable value…don’t get to the point   
• e)   all of the above

Answer:   e     all of the above

Have you ever noticed when you get a survey to fill out at work it is accompanied by a groan?  I had to fill out a survey for a dear friend who was going through a leadership development course.  Now keep in mind, I wanted to help my friend out, give her some honest feedback, help her grow in her career, etc.  I still groaned. AND I was practically in agony when I looked at the 3 different surveys they sent (online). Each survey was about 50 questions long. OMG. It took an hour and a half !!!

Surveys take too long.

Now, that was a leadership survey, focused on one person. I have developed, organized and distributed plenty of surveys over the years, including leadership, attitude, organization diagnosis, etc…  In the early days I wanted to be”complete” so they ended up being way too long.  Surveys focused on organizations tend to be very complex, looking at lots of dimensions. I mean, look….”We’ve got all these people’s attention and time; we better make good use of it; take advantage of the opportunity ….right?”.  NO.

Patience is a virtue

There are a ton of poor decisions made by management in any company that can be attributed to impatience. Usually these come in the guise of being proactive, decisive, pressing forward on critical initiatives. Basically Bull. A lot of it comes from fear. Fear of missed opportunities, fear of taking the time to find out the knee jerk reaction didn’t hold up under collaborative efforts, fear of something. It takes courage to be patient.  When it comes to surveys there is a desire to be complete, to ask a ton of things so we can get to the root of the problem.  More information is better right? We know that answer.  Asking too many questions and therefore getting questionable results is based on impatience and fear.  Are we offering a survey for a quick fix or are we trying to facilitate long term positive change.  Actually the answer to either of those desires (i.e. quick fix or long term change) begs for short focused surveys.

The answer

Actually, less is more. Fewer focused questions will give much more satisfactory results.  And just so I am talking out of both sides of my mouth, more short surveys scheduled over a period of time is the absolute best method of obtaining clear actionable feedback from employees. So the ideal survey system is smaller in terms of the number of questions, but more frequent surveys over time. I call this a “DRIP _tm” survey; Small doses over a long period of time.

Snap shot vs. video

The long survey is given less frequently because everyone knows what a pain it is to administer, take and give follow up feedback on each time. However, short, well planned surveys over time just become a part of the culture (hmmmm…that sounds like it might be good thing).  People may actually get the impression that management wants to hear from them more than once a year or so.  The long survey gives an impression of what people are feeling in that time period. But people’s impressions, views, needs change over time. And by the way, by the time I get to question 63 of 100…… I am probably annoyed at the company or at least the administrator of the questionnaire. Short DRIP _tm surveys over time give a better perspective of the situation to management.  Plus they have the added bonus of being adjusted from one survey to the next to home in on a really hot topic.

Size matters

The shorter DRIP _tm survey actually gives you more accurate picture over time.  In terms of the actual number of questions, well…the short one, with new questions each round yields more questions, more data.  The data can be re-verified, asked in different ways.  Open ended questions can yield new questions to find out how widespread the vocal opinions truly are.

So I will explore with you the huge advantage of DRIP _tm surveys paced out over time.  Watch for the next installment of how to set the survey up, some administrative matters, and the kinds of questions to ask and how to kick it off.