This follows directly on the heels of The Bob Parr Question. In case you haven’t read that article yet, said question is:
Have you ever felt the need to cover your tracks in order to do the right thing in our company?
The question is effective on its own: just seeing the numbers can sometimes be enough of a wakeup call / call to action. Here are some more things to ask when you don’t know where to go next:
- Another way to frame it: Do any of our processes, standard procedures, or unspoken rules seem to undermine or contradict our values and doing what is right?
- Timeframe: How long ago?
- Frequency: How often?
- Severity: Have you ever felt punished to any degree (including informal insinuations that you shouldn’t act this way in the future) for doing what you feel is right or reflecting our company values? Have you ever felt that the repercussions of doing the right thing would harm your career or standing with your direct manager?
- Source: If you have ever felt you had to cover up or CYA when doing the right thing, who were you protecting yourself from?
- Cost: If our company put you in a position where you needed to devote time to protecting yourself, we want to understand how much time we have cost ourselves. How much time have you spent taking actions to protect yourself “just in case someone wants to punish me for doing what I believe is right”?
- Cost: We recognize that we may have created losses to you as a human, in terms of your quality of life. If any of these apply, let use know:
- Have you ever felt stressed or worried on the clock because you did the right thing?
- Has that stress or worry ever bled over into your personal life?
- How has it affected you?
- Digging Deeper: Can you provide examples of times you’ve felt penalized for doing the right thing?
- What was the right action that you performed?
- What was the official, expected action which you were “supposed” to do?
- How do you feel your action reflected our company values?
- How did your manager/leader respond, and what did they tell you?
- How do you feel their response went against our company values?