Have you ever wanted to find out more about what’s happening in your business? A shift in culture, a change in team delivery, excessive recruitment in certain areas. All these things can point to challenges within your organisation, but you might not understand why they’re happening.
Employees may provide answers to a confidential employee engagement survey, but what about the context? Where’s the additional information to really help you understand what’s going on? That’s where exploratory conversations come in. Using an impartial facilitator, you gather in-depth data about your business and take action to address issues before they grow. Keep reading to find out how.
The options for exploratory conversations
While you can discover all sorts about your business through exploratory conversations, they typically fall into one of three categories:
A change in company culture
You’ll see it when it’s happening. Productivity goes up, communication improves, unhealthy conflict reduces, relationships strengthen, and delivery is off the charts. Alternatively, everything starts moving the other way.
When it’s positive, you want to replicate the results across the business. On the other hand, you need negative changes to stop, quickly. By understanding the cause of the change (good or bad), you can act and get the results you need.
Additionally, you can use exploratory conversations to seek honest views or ideas about proposed changes you’d like to introduce. They help you establish what employees would like to see and can provide invaluable insight into any fears or barriers to change, and an opportunity to proactively address them.
Team concerns
You’ll see this in the form of high employee turnover, a drop in morale, or a fall in attention to detail. It might start with one person, but those issues quickly spread. Perhaps several employees now have an attitude ‘problem’, sickness is increasing, and errors are becoming common. The underlying issue is the negative atmosphere you’re experiencing; you just have no idea what caused it or how to put it right.
Absence, turnover, poor morale – they all demand attention in their own right. Understanding the root of the problem, however, relies on open communication which you may not achieve on your own. External support through a facilitator offers a way for people to raise concerns confidentially, without fear of accusation or unintended backlash. That information thenallows you to take action to make things productive and positive again.
Colleague feedback
Not all employee issues can be addressed effectively through internal formal procedures alone. HR might be best placed to manage the process, but some cases (such as bullying, harassment, and discrimination) require an extra level of support.
These scenarios often start as a ‘he-said-she-said’ situation, so it’s important to seek honest views from a wider group of colleagues and form context on what’s really going on.
Exploratory conversations allow you to ensure confidentiality, provide anonymity and protect on-going relationships. You can ask people’s experience, without them worrying about potential fallout. In fact, fear of repercussions and damage to relationships are two of the main barrier to issues being reported (CIPD, Chapter 7).
Instead, by running these conversations alongside (or as part of) a grievance or disciplinary investigation process, you can get additional context about the issues and any support which might be required.
How exploratory conversations work
Getting teams working effectively and improving morale, productivity and attendance etc.has huge impacts on the business and how well it performs in the future. Exploratory conversations aim to uncover any underlying issues, seek honest feedback or review options for change. They’re confidential, impartial, work for the benefit of the business, and have five main components:
1) Neutral facilitator – when you’re seeking feedback, especially when it’s potentially sensitive, talking to someone impartial makes it easier for the participants. There’s no agenda. The only focus is gathering their experience and opinions. There’s also no judgement or bias (or at least there’s enough awareness to challenge any bias as you go).
2) Confidential and safe space – this is essential. Few people share challenges and concerns if they think the person involved will find out what they said. Participants want the option of anonymity and, once they’ve shared their deepest thoughts on atopic or concerns around a working relationship, they need confidence their comments will be presented discretely and objectively. An experienced facilitator won’t quote them directly. They’ll feedback using phrases like ‘the majority of colleagues shared…’ or ‘a common view expressed was…’.
3) Encourage different perspectives – exploratory conversations are open, inviting and want to hear what others have to say. People need to be comfortable sharing their experience, even if something hasn’t gone well. Not all businesses are open to getting this type of feedback, but those that are benefit greatly from their employees’ honesty. It enables them to move themselves and their teams forward and make informed decisions along the way.
4) Supportive of a reframe – employees may come at something from a different direction than you were expecting. When a business engages in exploratory conversations, senior leadership must be willing to take these opinions onboard. In some cases, they’ll need to revise how they view a problem and be open to new suggestions which can be implemented as a result.
5) Open to all possibilities – your facilitator must start without a preconceived notion of ‘the answer’. You want them to ask open questions, encourage interaction, and build a clear picture of what’s happened and what to do next. You’re looking for someone who’ll explore the positive (what’s going well) and negative (less well) and identify any immediate ‘hot spots’ or ‘quick wins’ that become apparent from their discussions.
Why your business needs exploratory conversations
When you’re doing something right in one place, you want to be able to repeat it. When it starts going wrong, quick action can get you back on the right path, but only if you have the relevant information. Exploratory conversations can deliver that and benefit your business through:
Uncovering hidden issues: reports and metrics don’t always tell the full story. Unless you’re able to drill down into particular teams or department functions, specific concerns can get lost in generalisations. Exploratory conversations give people an opportunity to consider their concerns in-depth and provide thoughts confidentially in a way that actually gets them heard.
Strengthening relationships: Speaking to employees to get genuine feedback can make a big difference. They want their opinions to matter, and sometimes have better ideas or greater insight than you as they experience the issues directly. Taking time to listen to them helps build trust and creates stronger connections for the future. Providing you take action on the results, it also avoids a ‘what’s the point’ mindset for any feedback requests in the future.
Solving problems proactively: Identifying issues early allows you to tackle them while they’re still manageable. Whether it’s a work process issue, or a team that can’t work together, allowing it time to grow causes the issue to fester and expand if you don’t encourage people to talk.
Improving innovation: where employees feel comfortable sharing feedback and ideas, innovation thrives. People don’t worry about something not working. They’re more open about sharing their observations and look to make sure your products, servicesand working relationships are the best that they can be.
Getting support to use exploratory conversations
Asking great questions and paying close attention to the answers can provide senior leadership with a wealth of knowledge and ideas to improve the business. The key is having someone who can encourage that openness in the first place.
The right external facilitator will create a safe and open environment, ask the necessary questions, and help you spot the issues you didn’t even know were there. They also help you identify anything positive, what’s desired, and those activities which are shifting things back the right way.
If you want a more productive organisation or are concerned teamworking is heading in the wrong direction, call the HR Detective hotline today. Let’s talk about the help you might need and how we can get you and your teams back on track. 01278 802329 or email Debbie@thehrdetective.co.uk.
