• Just ask.

    Posted on October 25th, 2007 by and currently 6 commenting.

    I am sitting at my desk after having just read the results of an online internal survey we just did at Brains on Fire called a ‘happiness survey’.

    I got the idea from this article about Whole Foods.

    Basically we asked some simple questions: Do you like coming to work? Are you happy with your salary? Do you have enough to do or way too much? Is the office comfortable for you and our clients? What can we do better? What do you want to be doing in the next three years? That sort of thing. We took about an hour ‘off-the-hook’ one morning, put it on the schedule and asked everyone to take that time to answer in thoughtful detail.

    And I am just stunned. There is no other word for it. I am completely blown away. It is amazingly full of rich ideas and suggestions that will help us all grow as a company and individually.

    We are, of course, nowhere near the size of Whole Foods, so I have fooled myself into believing that everyone here is heard — and heard often. And to some degree they are — their happiness confirms that. But I was also just reminded by this simple little survery that everyone who spends their entire day (and sometimes night) here has great passion and ideas for growing Brains on Fire. All I had to do was ask.

  • Jenny

    I wish they’d do that where I work!

  • libby

    BOF is a great place to become a part of something. And it’s spirit and energy never really leave you. Now more than ever, it seems to be filled with an amazing group of people continue to be empowered to do great things and work together for something even greater.

    Sincere From the artist formerly know as libby.

  • http://pointoforder.squarespace.com kamran

    r- Love the questions from Whole Foods!
    Would you share your questions?
    And would you share your biggest surprise? And best suggestion?
    Sorry to be so nosy, I’m just a big fan of both you guys and also the process you are using.
    akp

  • http://www.whatsthediff.com Christy

    Robbin, I *love* this! The biggest hurdle was, I’m guessing, making the time to thoughtfully write out the answers. I’m sure everyone there has great ideas, all day long. I know for me, the challenge is capturing those ideas. The pace of my work is such that I don’t have the time to capture all the ideas, wacky or not, that emerge every day. We struggled with carving regular time out every week to *think*. But, it always goes by the wayside.

    Another challenge might be the assumption that if *I* have an idea, *I* am responsible for doing something about it. Well, that’s not always the best plan. What if “I” am not the person with the skill set to carry out the idea effectively?

    We’re trying something new… we keep an internal wiki, so we’re posting ideas there. Just tiny jots of notes. As a team, we’re reading each others’ pages of notes to see where we can contribute. Or, maybe help develop the idea further. We’ve spent about six weeks on this exercise, and I’ve had to clear my page to come up with new ideas… other people have read my page and taken those ideas on! I hope it continues working this way…

  • http://adpulp.com David Burn

    The world needs more enlightened leaders with exceptional hearing. Way to set raise your own bar. Again.

  • Melanie

    I second David’s post!