Things I Learned From the...Part 2

This is just a brief update to a previous post regarding "things I learned from the..." various non-traditional sources of information.

I recently attended an ASTD workshop in downtown Columbus and was intrigued when one of the CEOs/Presidents in the panel discussion began to talk about her method for gathering honest information about how her organization was doing. She mentioned that she makes a point to attend smoke breaks whenever conducting a site visit. The reason for this is that people on smoke breaks talk about the nature of their work and what is bothering them the most at that specific point in time. She therefore is able to get a good sense for employee concerns (and a much better sense than if she, an executive, tried to get these same individuals to provide candid feedback in a 1:1 setting with her.

On a related note, my sister mentioned that everyone at her former employer, a large internet service provider, used to stand around the water coolers and talk about what was going on in the organization. Rather than try to gather this input and use it to make constructive changes, their leadership removed the water coolers.