Thirty years of research and practice has led me to a one-sentence conclusion that sums up my approach to organizational problem-solving: The questions people ask about situations they want to change reveal a lot about what they are thinking and feeling. When our unquestioned assumptions immobilize us, struggling to find a better answer is not nearly as useful as working on asking a better question. To be more questionable is to be able to find a better question when you’re stuck for an answer.
My whip-smart niece visited me last month. She’s about a year into her first real job and I was curious about her take on the well-documented divide between millennials and other generations. As an organizational development consultant, I thought I possessed some insight into this complex dynamic. I‘d read several articles, watched a popular Simon Sinek interview on millennial workers, and had my own first-hand experience. What she said, however, surprised me.
High employee engagement correlates with better team and organizational performance. Engaged employees help each other out, take greater initiative, and assume more responsibility for aligning their needs with the goals of the company.*
