Goodhart’s law.
The world of politics is probably the clearest example for us all.
In the end, to be successful, politicians must be popular. It is important to choose policies that will benefit the most people and gain their support. As an alternative, you could support popular policies. These policies may not benefit many people or contradictory or practical. Let the reader decide whether they can identify recent examples of behaviour by any of those people.
We should consider the impact of political decisions.
The goal of education is to prepare young people for work or higher education. This success is often measured by their grades. The majority of time spent in schools is on preparing for exams, which includes covering the entire curriculum and showing students how to answer questions. It is possible that less time is spent inspiring passion for the subjects or other life skills which will help them thrive in later years.
Similarly, healthcare. Is there an incentive for hospitals to discharge patients too quickly or to move them to a less appropriate area if they are aiming to not keep people in A&E longer than four hours? If the patient’s outcome is worse, another more important target will be missed.
Goodhart’s Law is everywhere.
Call centres that focus on shorter calls. You may find that if the advisor is required to finish each call in x minutes you are transferred to someone who has no idea of what you just said. Awful customer experience; target met.
Market share is a key metric for UK supermarkets. If your stores are not able to deliver any more market share, then the best thing you can do is start home delivery. It costs 2-3 times more to pick up and deliver your shopping than what you charge. Your market share increases, but you lose a lot of money.
We’ve all seen copy that is clearly designed for SEO. You lose faith in the person who published it after reading it. But you clicked on it, right?
Why am I telling this to you? It’s what often happens when engagement surveys are conducted.
We conduct engagement surveys to improve the performance of our organisation.
We know that more engaged workers create greater business success.
We often start by measuring and then move on to target. This is the mistake.
We end up doing other things instead of trying to improve the performance of an organisation – be it in terms of profitability or productivity.
We change the target into a measure. Now we are not focused on improving performance. Now, we are trying to improve the engagement score.
This is less useful for two reasons:
It is difficult to create engagement survey questions. Imagine all the interactions, policies, and behaviors that contribute to your experience of working with your employer. Imagine all the things you enjoy and find meaningful, as well as all the things which can drain your energy and enthusiasm.
It would take a long time to create a list of questions covering all these aspects. There are 100s, if you don’t want to go by an order of magnitude. It would be an enormous drain on engagement. )
We can then use research to focus on those things which are most likely to have a greater impact. It’s still a very long list. We need to begin to aggregate ideas and make sure that the questions cover multiple ideas. Make the questions less specific.
Rather than asking the many questions that determine whether we have a positive relationship with our manager, such as: Do they understand and support your needs, do you feel they are on your side, do you “get” them, etc., we could instead ask, “Do you enjoy working with your manager?”
Problems with focusing on specific questions
Look at some of the Q12 questions from Gallups. These are scientifically rigorous questions, no doubt. Let’s consider what we could do with their results. These are questions 10-12
* My best friend is at work.
* I have been told about my progress at work by someone in the past six months.
* I had many opportunities to grow and learn at my job in the last year.
Your engagement scores may not be as high as you’d like. It would be tempting to make them a target and look at ways you can improve these scores.
* I have been told about my progress at work by someone in the past six months.
Here is the most obvious – and often observed – example. The survey will be released in a week, so make sure to talk with your team about progress. The question does not measure whether the conversation was good or if it enabled anyone to progress. It only measures that it has been discussed.
Here, I could have a little more sympathy for my employer. I hear this a lot in organisations. I don’t have the opportunity to develop which means that there is no immediate vertical promotion available. It can sound a little “What has Rome ever done for us?” When pressed. No development, apart from training, mentoring, that selected project, coaching, the opportunity to visit the other location, that conference, etc.
There will be many internal communications campaigns to promote these opportunities because sometimes people don’t see them the same as their employers, which is unfair.
I have a good friend at work.
I don’t know what to do. It’s fair to say that the Gallup questions are most frequently questioned.
I’d simply say that you are more likely to make friends with those who share your gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic background. Where this leads us is still a mystery.
Instead of focusing on individual questions, organisations should instead focus on the following.
We’ve seen in the questions that they must speak to employees.
Are your employees all average? Did you think so?
Let us think about the progress question.
The survey is not designed to provide the answer.
You can use them to identify areas of interest and celebration, which you may want to explore and celebrate. Then, you can track your progress by setting internal benchmarks. (External benchmarks? (External benchmarks?
We can ask people, in a more open and honest way, to tell us about their progress, how it affects them, and what they find important. Also, we will ask if you feel you are getting the best opportunities.
It’s possible that the chances of progressing are good and that they just happen in a more organic manner in this organization. It’s not a sign of a problem if you get fewer points, but it does show that the question isn’t as relevant.
It’s possible that “progress” may not be a concept of importance in a certain section or level. Some people may just want to show up, do their very best work and then go home. It can feel like this is a choice that is not taken seriously, or as an environment where you can get highly engaged employees.
It might also not be about progression, but about mastery and expertise. It may not be as important to progress or move up, but it is more important that you improve your skills and become better in your current role.
It could also be that advancement opportunities are perceived as vague, inconsistent or even unfair. If you’re not perceived as an employer who is fair and has integrity, it will be difficult to get employees that are truly engaged.
Survey questions are not enough. You need much more insight
There is free text available in an online survey. People are often not motivated to do this. The people are usually more concerned with getting the survey out of their inbox than giving a complete account.
The survey should be used to guide the topic selection, but not limit it.
It should feel like an investment to listen to your people. They can be taken out of the office (without having to worry about work piling behind them) They can express their feelings in a safe, non-threatening environment.
As a sidenote, if you want to give your people a little extra:
* A safe space
* Some guardrails about budgets/practicality/feasibility
* A focus on where we want to go: profitability, productivity, customer experience
You’ll get useful, viable ideas.
Insight is an investment worth making
I mean, I-would-say-that-wouldn’t-I? Use of an external expert is not necessary:
* Demonstrates your Investment (and places the onus of proof on them)
* creates a safe space. The person listening doesn’t have a stake in the outcome. They don’t have to justify what has happened before. They can listen to the other person without any baggage.
These rich conversations are where you will find the root of engagement and make the biggest differences. These are the conversations that you should be able to see in your engagement survey but also those that will have a direct impact on your bottom-line.
It’s almost boring to hear myself say it, but I often think of engagement surveys as a map. I actually see them as a compass. The engagement surveys tell you where to start looking, but the more detailed information is found elsewhere. You can put yourself in the shoes of others by gaining insight into how they feel about their job.
