Sometimes leaders are the last to know. Even in the best organizations, information about problems and issues faced by others travels slowly upward. Because team members want to be viewed favorably by those who can reward and punish them, they filter information about problems, giving leaders less truth about the organization than they desire. As a result, some issues and problems only surface once they are too big to remain hidden.
@mikeyames your absolutely right that you have to hold these sessions frequently. It took our leader Scott several months to get people to open up and feel comfortable with him enough to share real issues. As he continued to meet monthly (he was from Glasgow - but moved to US to run that site) his reputation spread to the other employees as someone who listened and they were more likely in turn to accept his future invites. What also helped is he followed through on his commitment to address some of the feasible issues that came up. Seeing issues get addressed was good for morale for the site. I haven’t talked to him in years, but I’ll bet he’s still holding his round tables wherever he is. He was a good leader.
You've got to think once the benefits of this kind of behavior are fully realized it becomes an ongoing routine for good leaders in every organization they are part of.
The best example I saw of this was a Manufacturing Leader from Scotland who came over to run a site in the U.S. Every month he would meet with a small group of line-level employees and ask similar questions. We called them Roundtables. He would them share the feedback in his weekly staff meeting with his direct reports. He and I would talk about what we could do in our 1:1s from an HR perspective (I was a site HR Generalist at the time).
Ok, show us an example of reverse Q&A questions. The article touts how amazing it can be to put Sr Mgt on the hot seat and address issues. Examples please..................
“ask small groups of team members what the leader might be blind to, what is getting in the way of team effectiveness, what needs to change to promote the highest performance, what is the best and the worst of the organization, and what problems and issues are undermining productivity or results in any area.”
In a reverse q/a. It is the leaders asking questions, not the team members.
Lots of good questions prime the learning, of which a few are listed above. As to timing, we would say this is ongoing, just like normal Q&As should be.
Are the specifics you’re looking for around how and when to deploy a reverse Q&A session well, or more questions than those listed in the paragraph that Jennifer highlighted?
Let's talk about what a Reverse Q&A is for a few minutes:
https://twitter.com/AdmiredLeaders/status/1684922318592622592
@mikeyames your absolutely right that you have to hold these sessions frequently. It took our leader Scott several months to get people to open up and feel comfortable with him enough to share real issues. As he continued to meet monthly (he was from Glasgow - but moved to US to run that site) his reputation spread to the other employees as someone who listened and they were more likely in turn to accept his future invites. What also helped is he followed through on his commitment to address some of the feasible issues that came up. Seeing issues get addressed was good for morale for the site. I haven’t talked to him in years, but I’ll bet he’s still holding his round tables wherever he is. He was a good leader.
Nice, David. Thanks for the follow up.
You've got to think once the benefits of this kind of behavior are fully realized it becomes an ongoing routine for good leaders in every organization they are part of.
The best example I saw of this was a Manufacturing Leader from Scotland who came over to run a site in the U.S. Every month he would meet with a small group of line-level employees and ask similar questions. We called them Roundtables. He would them share the feedback in his weekly staff meeting with his direct reports. He and I would talk about what we could do in our 1:1s from an HR perspective (I was a site HR Generalist at the time).
What were the size of these small groups, David?
6 to 10
Ok, show us an example of reverse Q&A questions. The article touts how amazing it can be to put Sr Mgt on the hot seat and address issues. Examples please..................
“ask small groups of team members what the leader might be blind to, what is getting in the way of team effectiveness, what needs to change to promote the highest performance, what is the best and the worst of the organization, and what problems and issues are undermining productivity or results in any area.”
In a reverse q/a. It is the leaders asking questions, not the team members.
Lots of good questions prime the learning, of which a few are listed above. As to timing, we would say this is ongoing, just like normal Q&As should be.
Are the specifics you’re looking for around how and when to deploy a reverse Q&A session well, or more questions than those listed in the paragraph that Jennifer highlighted?
I agree, examples of questions would help this post!
If you appreciated this entry, you'll probably want to read this one:
https://admiredleadership.substack.com/p/listen-like-youre-wrong
And this one too:
https://admiredleadership.substack.com/p/end-user-engagement-is-the-best-proof
A theme is emerging from the last several days.