You don’t know what you know until you know it.
Last week I was invited into a meeting to bring employee involvement perspective on how they could “change the culture” by utilizing grass roots bottom up approach with manufacturing employees while not involving executive leadership. I found myself both taking a lot of notes and asking a lot of questions such as,
- I want to make sure I understand what you are asking…can you share with me what the word “culture” means to you?
- you stated that this mechanics program was used about 7 years ago, in your opinion what made it successful? why did it fail?
- what were the actual results / changes?
- There are a lot of complexities involved, how do you know there is correlation between the quality results you shared and the program?
- Did you previous evaluate the program?
- How do you intend on evaluating the current reality so that we know where to focus?
After the meeting, I was pulled aside by one of the attendees who told me I was being quite combative and negative towards this “opportunity” – this comment took me by surprise. Back to my comment I started this post, you don’t know what you don’t know until you know it. Because of this course and the emphasis on evaluation I now approach my work and “potential opportunities” with new eyes.
I started this post, you don’t know what you don’t know until you know it. Because of this course and the emphasis on evaluation I now approach my work.