How to Create Valuable Team Assessments
Caitlin Ziegler and Stacey Makshakova of GRIST Consulting - a leadership development company - get coaching to painlessly collect data from teams to generate individual and team growth reports.
The challenges we address in this session ...
How to increase survey completion rates.
How to give meaningful personalized insights back to participants.
Transcript
Alaina Szlachta (00:03.760)
With me today, I have Caitlin and Stacey from a company named GRIST in Australia. I will let them introduce themselves in just a moment, but I just want to say, I love to say how we all got connected because I think the universe brings connections in really amazing ways. So we all got connected from an organization called the L&D Forum in Australia that does monthly workshops. And they have
really amazing global audience and that's how we came together doing a conference and I just love when we get to make new connections and ultimately collaborate to help one another out. So just thank you L&D Forum for making that happen. So without further ado, Caitlin, since you are a director with Grist, please let us know what does your company do and why are you working there? Why do you love it? What's your mission? What are you up to?
Caitlin Ziegler (01:14.470)
Thanks, Elena, and thanks for having us. It's very exciting to be here today. So yes, I am director at GRIST. At GRIST, we're really about simplifying change and inspiring learning so organizations and people can thrive. And what we mean by that is we are sort of change management, but at our heart, our passion really is learning and development. And how do you use learning and development to really drive change and drive performance in organizations? So that's sort of in a nutshell about what we do. We do a lot of leadership training, a lot of sales and service, and drive performance in organisations. So that's really the job, that's what we do, we do a lot of leadership training and other science and service.
Alaina Szlachta (01:33.152)
Wonderful. And it's probably no surprise while we all get along so well because Caitlin and I and GRIST as a company really believe in data collection and using data to show behavior and then ultimately change the behaviors that help the business in the long run.
Caitlin Ziegler (01:44.122)
And we also have a behavioral analytics arm where we really dig into behavioral change and how people demonstrate it and what we can do to improve it. So I'm a director at Grist, as you said, and I also look after our design side and behavior analytics side, the data side of our business.
Alaina Szlachta (02:02.598)
And they do amazing work. Yeah, yeah. Stacy, tell us about yourself. How did you get connected with GRIST?
Alaina Szlachta (02:10.833)
Yep.
Caitlin Ziegler (02:16.903)
Absolutely.
Stacey Makshakova (02:24.658)
Yes, so I am currently an insights manager at Greast, but I started in Caitlin's team as a behavioral analyst a few years ago, and I guess it's my passion for understanding human behavior that drove me to Greast, and they had a very unique position that I could apply for, and then stayed because all of the work that I'm doing, and it's never the same, like every day is different.
Alaina Szlachta (02:43.551)
and everything that happens.
Alaina Szlachta (02:50.304)
driving change is going to be a theme of today's conversation. So let's dig right in. So before we just get in the weeds and have a collaborative conversation to achieve a goal, which is to have a really clear plan for collecting data and having an awesome survey that really gives insights that are incredibly valuable for the team that completes this tool. So to frame the challenge. So there's a couple of things and I'll make sure I didn't miss anything before we dive in.
Stacey Makshakova (02:51.382)
But it's all connected to getting the data to understanding the leaders, what they do and also using the data to help them improve and therefore drive the change better.
Stacey Makshakova (03:07.912)
Mm.
Alaina Szlachta (03:18.016)
So one big opportunity, and this is something that, oh my gosh, if we could nail this, we would be giving a gift to the world, getting people to complete surveys. So we all know that, surveys are always a challenge. Even if you have incredible insights, people I think in general are survey fatigued. And the interesting thing is surveys on the flip side are a really accessible tool.
Caitlin Ziegler (03:44.538)
Always a challenge.
Alaina Szlachta (03:45.084)
to collect data and to give insights and tell the stories of impact and change. So we don't wanna not use surveys, but we also need to recognize that it's difficult to get people to take them. So what are we gonna do about that? So challenge and opportunity, number one. Number two is just making sure that whatever is given back to the team, the organization, the department, each individual perhaps is super meaningful, valuable.
And hopefully, we'll then also encourage them to complete the survey. Of course, those things are connected. So we want to get really clear on that. And then ultimately, we want to make sure that the data, the insights that we give back to the team are really going to be helpful for the larger learning and development objectives of the organization that's taking the survey. So three opportunities for us today. It's a tall order. Caitlin, Stacey, is there anything else you'd like to add about the challenge that we're going to dive into?
Alaina Szlachta (04:40.772)
Awesome, really good. Okay, so I've had the pleasure of taking a look at the survey in advance, and don't worry, we will probably do a screen share so you can see it as well. So where I'd like to start here, and Stacey, when we were talking before we pressed the record button, you really said it right, that it's super important to get essentially the what's in it for me. How do we frame the benefits?
Caitlin Ziegler (04:54.026)
I think you've covered it well there, Alayna. Ha ha.
Stacey Makshakova (05:00.353)
Mm-hmm.
Alaina Szlachta (05:09.244)
second and third challenge, I believe it's the right one to start with, because again, those correlate with getting the what's in it for me, what's in it for the organization really clear. And then that will help us to tell a powerful story to help with the collection of data. So my question for you is, what's your current plan or vision, maybe there's no plan, but there's just a really great idea around what you're gonna do with the data from the survey.
Alaina Szlachta (05:39.897)
I'm not going to do any of that.
Alaina Szlachta (06:29.968)
Mm-hmm. That's great. And I have another question. So this we didn't talk about, but I think is really good context. So this particular survey is assessing change readiness and looking at the development conversations and opportunities and sort of awareness about development in general. And I want to just dive in quickly to change readiness and also then what you plan on doing with the data.
And I think just for all of us, change readiness is a really broad overarching term. And I think there are many tools that we can use to improve change readiness. And so it looks like with this particular assessment, you're looking at development, specifically development conversations as a tool to facilitate change readiness. So.
Alaina Szlachta (07:18.800)
Is there anything more that you might want to add? Because I think this will help us to get a little bit clearer around the what's in it for me, for the organization, and also for the individual. How do you see that relationship more clearly between questions around development conversations and the organization and the frequency and the focus of those, and then a change ready department or organization? Tell me more about that relationship, either of you.
Caitlin Ziegler (07:58.238)
I can take that one. That's all right, Stacey. I think it's a really good point, Elena. And I think when we think about change and if we think about learning and development, they're not normally linked as things that go together. And in most of the organizations we work with we'll see them as two quite separate things that they have to take care of this over here and they have to do learning development over here. Whereas in reality, if you actually build a leadership operating with them which is built towards learning and development.
you can actually incorporate any kind of change that comes down the pipe into that learning development rhythm, if you like. So that's why we sort of take a different tack, I guess, or a different way of looking at how we look at learning development. That learning development isn't just about developing someone in a capability or upskilling them for their next career. It's actually about using that rhythm and using your leaders to upskill people to deal with change as well.
And if you do that effectively, if you can really build in that rhythm and the focus and the frequency and the quality of that activity, it means that you can actually set up your whole leadership to drive change through your organisation really effectively without you having to bring in something new every time when you're looking at making a change, whether that's process system or conversation, whatever you're looking at in terms of change. Does that answer your question, Elena? Yeah.
Alaina Szlachta (08:55.260)
So, yeah, so just to make sure I'm understanding it for anyone listening to understand the relationship because I think it's brilliant. It's the kind I like this rhythm concept that development and having development almost systems baked into the organization sets up leaders and then therefore the organization to be agile to offer development as change as you're navigating the.
the rapid pace of change and growth and all the dynamics that are coming at us quickly, I think more than ever before. Is that sort of what you're imagining?
Caitlin Ziegler (09:45.874)
Yeah, well, because the way that we see it, and because we are experts in behavioural change, behavioural change is, learning and development is a part of behavioural change. It is about changing your behaviour in one way to learn a new skill or to upskill in a different capability. And any change that comes through an organisation is no different to that. So rather than looking at them as separate things, seeing them in the same way means that it just gives you, like you said, that sort of agility and flexibility to actually deal with a lot more change. And as we know,
every organisation is dealing with more and more change through their systems and processes and every way that they do business. So this is just a different way of looking at going, this is why learning and development is so important and that rhythm of learning and development is so important in an organisation and why your leaders play such an important role in driving that through an organisation. And that's what we really believe in and that's what we really target our programmes around.
Alaina Szlachta (10:26.008)
Nice, I love that. So there's a model in the world of measurement and evaluation that's not really well known that I think is a really interesting model to consider just reviewing as you're developing this assessment. It's called the discrepancy evaluation model or the DEM. And it has originated in, I think it was...
higher ed and K-12 here in the United States. And the whole premise of the DEM model is that you are tracking performance, current performance based on a standard, or you're creating a standard or a baseline where none currently exists. And so what might be really interesting in terms of, okay, let's go back to the what's in it for me, what's in it for the organization, and then how do you frame that?
to offer value to get people bought in to taking the survey. I see an opportunity here to, if an organization has not done this assessment before, you're giving them their standard of the ability to deal with change from a systems perspective, which I think is really interesting. And then a benefit to have them continually take the survey is that now they've got a benchmark and they wanna be able to track growth.
from a systems perspective. And that would be essentially the DEM model in action. How does that resonate with y'all?
Alaina Szlachta (12:18.588)
Is it correct, Caitlin, that my hypothesis is that many organizations don't have a baseline or a benchmark or even a standard or even think of it like you do from a systems approach? And so back to the, what are you going to do with the data? And you're looking at, well, what are leaders doing on a day-to-day basis? And where do they stand in their ability to offer leadership to navigate change? That's really...
broad. And so I would love to see some of the insights that you give back almost in assisting, like offering systems advice. Because I think where you probably like to go, where you imagine going is that, okay, people complete this 30 to 40 question. There's three different categorical focus areas to give them back insights. But I think what you're looking to do is give them opportunities to go, well, here's either your
baseline or maybe it would be really interesting to say this is a best practice. So I wasn't sure if you are also going to show here's how your team or your leadership is performing compared to best practices. Tell me more about what you're thinking there.
Alaina Szlachta (13:44.544)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Caitlin Ziegler (13:47.510)
Yeah, that's exactly what we want to trial with that, is that having, we have in our own head of what a best practice would be and obviously every organisation is going to be a little bit more nuanced to that, there's going to be some room to move. But yeah, having that sort of a bit of a sliding scale, this is what we'd expect and here's a recommendation, knowing that you do this, actually doing it this way might be slightly more effective.
So having that sort of best practice is how we thought we could pin those insights into something that's actually actionable and interesting for somebody receiving that data back to going, well, that's what I do. I can see what I do. But actually, if I did it, maybe if I try it differently, it could give me a better result. And you're right, most organizations don't have that baseline. They will have lots of output measures of performance about what's happening in their teams in terms of their performance and their sales or their conversions or their service. But...
you're not seeing that what are the leaders actually doing to drive that and how is that linking through to the performance metrics? And lots of leaders will say that they are doing these different things to drive that performance, but really tracking it and measuring it across an organisation is not something that is done very consistently, let's say from our experience of looking at it out there. Yes, absolutely. I think best practice is a good way of giving them a measure to compare.
Alaina Szlachta (14:48.992)
Mm-hmm. One thing that would be really interesting, so I hear in what are you gonna do with the data and how are you gonna offer valuable insights? I hear that using a delta. So here's the best practice and performance and then here's your delta between where you are and the best practices, but you're also given a baseline. Next time you take the survey, you can compare to your own standard, if you will, of where you are. And so the other thing is,
The so what. So what that an organization has agility and they're ready for change. I wonder if there's a story that you already have access to from your experience being experts in this space. What's the so what? Or maybe there's some research because I think the really important piece is like, yes, we wanna show you where your Delta is and what gaps to fill. But I think for me, what's missing
And maybe what would be really helpful is the, well, why do we care? Like, why do we care about this Delta? I'm sure you're gonna give great recommendations, Caitlin and Stacey, at the end of the assessment, but so what?
Caitlin Ziegler (16:13.498)
I'm going to let Stacey take this because she's actually done a lot of delving into this research. Alaina, Stacey.
Alaina Szlachta (18:58.505)
Yeah.
Alaina Szlachta (19:15.196)
Yeah. So I hear, um, I'm writing down some notes. This will be our plan to implement that. The first step is telling a really powerful story for why to take the survey. And so working backwards, you're obviously going to give them a plan. The plan is based on the Delta, the difference between best practices and where they're currently performing and what their behaviors currently are as a leadership team. And I think the high level and what we're talking about here is the impact.
that that's so what question. And if you're telling the impact story, there's two pieces and Stacey, you got the first one absolutely right about the pain point. And you described that as being overwhelmed, the lack of clarity or maybe even frustration, burnout, because of being caught in that swirl of constant change. What I would also love to see, and this could be part of the process as you continue to work on this survey and telling that impact story is the opportunity. And that probably exists.
and research. It's like, okay, doing implementing this plan led to this opportunity for these three organizations. And so I'd love to know what's that clear opportunity for how the pain point was solved with anecdotal stories, numbers, if we can, an example would be something like a merger, let's say an organization has merged, and obviously change just happened immediately for both
you know, members of current employees. And so maybe the leadership, the feeling of the leadership transition because this company, they merged, they had this plan in place and they didn't feel, they didn't lose as many employees because of a lack of, I don't know, cohesion because of that change, right? Like some really concrete sort of case study or,
story of that impact of how implementing this plan of having these learning and development systems in place, how then that actually made them more agile in the face of change. I would love to see that and then tie all those things together. Impact, knowing your delta, implementing a plan, and I think you'll have a really powerful story to tell just as the step number one to get people to take the survey. How does that resonate?
Caitlin Ziegler (21:54.022)
I think that's a really good idea, Elena. It's definitely something that we could pull into because really this survey has been born out of our work with organizations to see what's worked. And I think the big, in my mind, the what's in it for me and the so what for the leader is, like they get a lot of feedback on different things and performance measures they need to change and things they should be doing. They know they should be doing the learning development, but it often feels like, like Stacey said, it's overwhelming and it's too much. And...
There's kind of a reticence when you do surveys like this, I think, particularly when you're looking around capability that leaders have in the back of their mind, it's something else I have to do, something extra. And what we're trying to retarget with this or give them insight into is actually what you're doing, you can simplify what you're doing, what you're already doing and do it a little bit better by just actually making a few tweaks. So it's not about adding extra things in, it's about.
being more efficient and effective about the activities that you're doing. And so I think showing a bit of a case study or imagine if, or imagine your team in this scenario would be quite powerful for them to see how a leader not only sort of drove a change through their team, but also didn't actually add tons of extra work on top of their already extremely busy schedule. Cause we know that leaders generally have got a packed schedule. So adding extra things in is never a good, a good way to go.
Alaina Szlachta (22:59.644)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love that. So I also love that, just to re-emphasize, this survey was born out of the work that Grist has been doing for years and years. So it likely is that you can go into your, your, how do you say, archives of case studies and probably find a couple in different instances that tell that opportunity. When this, when people had this plan in place, they were this much more agile. And this is what the outcome was in the different example.
of change. Mergers and acquisitions are just one. Off the top of my head, there's a million others. But what was a change that often causes overwhelm, something super specific, that you can say, when this organization had this systematic L&D in place, this is the outcome of that in the face of a big change. And then I just think you are offering this, I'm going to say it again, the systematic solution, which I think L&D is oftentimes kind of
Alaina Szlachta (23:59.200)
Fluffy, for lack of a better word. I think a lot of people can see learning and development as kind of this fluffy, nice to have thing. But if you position it as a system that's, how did you say, Caitlin? It's a rhythm that's already in place. And therefore with that systematic way of having development conversations, spaces for development that you can just integrate whatever you need into that system in the face of change. To me, it's an absolute no brainer, but I think.
it's a pretty uncommon perspective to have about learning and development. So I would definitely put that into the why, the story of why you're doing that and what that plan is that you're going to give is a system or steps to build a system to be agile. I think that's fantastic. I want to take this. If I had a big team, I would be taking this. I love it. Okay, good. So, so to address our first challenge,
we wanted to get people to complete the survey. We basically need to have a really powerful story for why. And I think we've got a plan in place to tell that story. You'll have to go do a little more research and then craft it. And then we can talk about, you know, when you tell the story and as part of the collection process, how that resonated with people. But then there's another challenge of getting people to take the survey. We talked about survey fatigue and we talked about people just hate surveys. And so...
Caitlin Ziegler (25:01.490)
Ha ha.
Alaina Szlachta (25:22.504)
they might really be bought into the story of why, but I think there's also a logistical thing that we can talk about. How do we make it as painless as possible for people to complete the survey? Because one challenge you have and that this is a team survey is that you need to have the majority of the people take the survey around the same time, such that A, you don't have water cooler talk, right? Where people are like...
hey, I got this result, right? Or people are waiting for their results for so long because so-and-so was on vacation. And so how do we logistically make it painless to collect the data? And I'll share ideas, but I think it's a question that you'll wanna continue wondering. The first thing that comes to mind for me is to have a timeline or instituting the survey when there's already like a big team meeting.
where if you're doing some sort of learning and development project with them that you introduce, GRIST is introduced, the story is told at a team meeting or maybe it's an all company wide meeting or maybe it's multiple departments they all meet around the same time. So just kind of building it in with live context so that it's not just an email that gets sent out like here's this thing which is oftentimes in a hurry what we're guilty of doing but actually
building it into a live sort of either virtual or in-person time when everyone comes together. And maybe that pushes out when you collect the data, but that way you'll probably get 80% of people doing it. And you could even suggest to the client that they give people time to do it in the meeting, not just do it later, but like, hey, we're going to sit here and turn some music on. This will take five minutes. And oh, by the way, maybe there's a couple questions that you can give them instant.
like a report with instant feedback that maybe is something that they use as part of a conversation. I don't know, you could be creative, but I highly recommend just building it into a conference, a gathering, a something where everybody's already there and just have them do it as live versus and then send of course emails to those that weren't weren't there and give a deadline. But how does that resonate with you?
Caitlin Ziegler (27:51.886)
It's interesting to say that, Elaine, because we did actually recently incorporate with one of our clients in a learning program exactly that. So bringing in some little QR codes where they did a really short three to four question survey in the moment. And I was I was really amazed because I was in the room watching one of the groups in that really amazed how many people just quickly just logged on and did it immediately. It wasn't even an issue. Whereas, you know, that if you send those email links, the hit rate is so low.
Alaina Szlachta (28:15.508)
Yeah.
Caitlin Ziegler (28:19.186)
But in the moment and in the context, and when they were brought into the moment, because they were in the session already, they were quite engaged with that and getting back that little tiny little bit of data at the end of what that answers really just made a massive difference. So, oh yeah, 100% agree that that would be a really nice way to go with this survey.
Alaina Szlachta (28:21.256)
Yeah, and I would suggest, because you have a 30 question survey, and I'm not sure that we'll need to look at it here with everybody, 30 to 40, excuse me. And probably not all the data is going to be even useful to give back in the moment, but you might be able to flag a couple of questions and then in your survey tool, most survey tools, you have the ability to create reports on the backend. And like, for example,
Alaina Szlachta (28:50.748)
You can create a PDF using whatever data comes back from whatever questions that you want. And then as the data comes in, it automatically feeds and you have those reports just boom in a PDF, electronic PDF that you can just screen share and talk about. So maybe just flagging two or three questions that you wanna give your client and then give them some talking points or something like that to make it really painless to share the, you know, here's some cool data.
and a couple questions to facilitate discussion or something like that.
Alaina Szlachta (29:27.236)
Awesome. So back to what we were up to. We were up to number one, getting people to complete the survey. So we talked about one, having a really powerful story and maybe even scripting it. I mean, not all leaders are great in the moment live. So giving someone some bullet points so that when they do present it in a live opportunity or maybe it's a few different team meetings. So getting that story bullet pointed and sharing that.
Caitlin Ziegler (29:39.231)
That's great.
Alaina Szlachta (29:55.292)
We also said challenges were making sure that we give them the right insights. And I think we've got a super solid plan around that. I'll send you as a follow-up and anyone who's participating in this on demand, I'll give you that discrepancy evaluation model just to kind of review and see if there's anything from that model that would help you frame the insights or help you frame the sort of benchmark or standard that you're evaluating for them. There could be some good language in there to give a report back.
Alaina Szlachta (30:23.840)
And then the other challenge that we talked about was giving them some steps to improve. And it sounds like you've already got a sense from your own work of what's a general best practice. The one challenge will be just making sure that your survey tool, and maybe this is no issue because you've done this before, but for anyone who's listening, making sure that you can give categorical and personalized feedback. Not all survey tools are created equal.
Some tools make that really difficult and some tools, it's really intuitive and the personalization that you get based on scores. Again, some tools are awesome and some tools are not. You guys have one that you feel pretty confident with? I'm sure you do.
Alaina Szlachta (31:31.324)
Yep, yep, and not to plug job form, but it is a tool that I have used consistently and I don't have many complaints. One, it allows you to create a PDF report that you can build in advance and then just put the data that people actually complete. You can just plop it in, you can tell it to calculate things in advance. And so it gives you that PDF report. It allows you to do categorical and then personal feedback based on unique responses.
And it's a really affordable tool that you can just get for the month if this is a test and you're not really sure, but you need a tool for now to see how you like it and then maybe go from there. So that would be my suggestion. And there are others. So, but you also get that report feature too within JotForm that I described about, hey, just look at these three questions and the answers and let's look at the data cumulatively and talk about it. So, yeah.
Alaina Szlachta (32:28.072)
Very cool. Well, I'm loving this. So what we'll do next, and for all those that are listening, we will create a plan based on this conversation. So if you too are also wanting to create and or distribute a team specific analysis tool, giving some personalized feedback, this conversation will really help you to make the data collection process painless, inspiring and interesting for everyone.
Caitlin Ziegler (32:41.074)
So we're looking to that definitely.
Alaina Szlachta (32:56.860)
and then getting that feedback to offer our development opportunities. So I'm really excited to see how this works. Nice job.
Alaina Szlachta (33:07.480)
Awesome, awesome. Anything else that we should dive into before we wrap up? Do we feel like we've got a pretty solid plan here?
Caitlin Ziegler (33:18.698)
Me too. I'm very excited too.
Caitlin Ziegler (33:31.434)
I think we do have a, yeah, get Stacy. And look, we do have a bunch of leaders in one of our clients coming up that we are going to trial this on. So I think it would be a really nice opportunity to get some feedback as well, because I know you always need that feedback on whether it's actually resonating all those things you put in place. So yeah, excited to see how that might work. Yeah.
Alaina Szlachta (33:33.054)
Yeah.
Alaina Szlachta (33:36.497)
Well, we look forward to hearing how it does work when we come back in a couple of weeks to a month or so and hear from you about implementation. So we look forward to that. Thank you for your time and we'll see you all soon.
Caitlin Ziegler (34:03.486)
Thanks, Elena.