I'm at the World of Learning Conference in Birmingham today where the opening keynote, by Karen Bowes, HR director at Capital One International, looked at building a learning culture in organisations. Karen shared three great questions about performance, which were:
What do you do?
What could you do?
What is stopping you?
I really liked these questions because they talk to individual responsibility and organisational responsibility (if your manager gets in your way, for example).
What questions would you add?
Replies
Hi Martin,
You already have some great questions.
One way to help get at the barriers to performance are these two questions, asked in this order
1. What frustrates you on a frequent basis?
2. What do you tolerate that used to frustrate you?
These questions do pre-suppose that the person you are asking does want to do a good job, but I believe that is the case with most people.
Cheers, Paul
Hi Paul. I agree that we are amassing some great questions here and your two are great additions. Thankyou. I like the question on tolerance - that's interesting because people do just 'put up with things'. Unlocking those will help people move on. Great thoughts!
I recall many 1:1 sessions with my line managers over the years where they asked questions that I didn't answer well, but if I'd had time to think them through I might have had a better answer ready. ( I guess I'm a reflector in that respect :) )
In fact the first question is a preparation for the second one.
The reason for this is that 'tolerations' are buried at the unconsious level. In effect, part of the culture. You need some way of yanking them back into conscious awareness and the first question is part of that process. You need people saying '...and another thing'. They typically get on a roll when the buried stuff gets excavated.
And of course, you can always encourage people to come back to tell you later if they think of something else because they encounter it when working.
Cheers, Paul
Building a strengths based culture will enable your team to be more productive and engaged...
I agree with the ones already posed, how about these also...
What accomplishment(s) are you most proud of?
Tell me about the aspects of your work that you find challenging
What have I done to help you do your job better? What have I done to hinder your job performance?
The reason for my additions is to encourage the person to start with a positive mind-set, explore the challenges (and if none whether they are eager for more stretch!), finally use it as an opportunity for 360 degree feedback.
Hi Angela, I really like these. In particular I like the questions about how the manager has helped or hindered the individual, bringing in their responsibility in the development process.
I also like the idea of getting the direct feedback from team members. I do this and I let them know in advance that I will be asking, so they can prepare. Every now and again I also write to the teams we serve asking for feedback and whether we can do anything better or anything different to help them more.
Who supports you in your work?
Who do you support?
What difference do you make on a daily, monthly, annual basis? (delete timeframe as relevant to the role)
The reason for my additions is to promote team working and making sure it is recognised as important - where the team is bigger than just the small team, but is in fact the whole company and all customers. (the reason for the company existing!)
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