{"id":425,"date":"2017-12-01T01:08:12","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T01:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielvlopes238992071.wordpress.com\/2017\/12\/01\/do-not-ask-this-question-if-you-want-high-employee-morale\/"},"modified":"2024-10-11T10:33:23","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T17:33:23","slug":"do-not-ask-this-question-if-you-want-high-employee-morale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canopy.is\/blog\/2017\/12\/01\/do-not-ask-this-question-if-you-want-high-employee-morale\/","title":{"rendered":"Do not ask this question if you want high employee morale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trust me, it surprised me too. But this is not one of the questions to ask employees about\u00a0morale.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cHow can I help\u00a0you?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You\u2019d think this would be a great question to ask your employees. Surely, I\u2019ve asked this question, as a CEO myself, to my own team countless of times.<\/p>\n

Turns out, I\u2019m wrong.<\/p>\n

The question, \u201cHow can I help you?\u201d hurts employees more than it helps.<\/p>\n

Let me explain.<\/p>\n

The other week, I ran a workshop. One of the participants\u200a\u2014\u200aa CEO\u200a\u2014\u200awas struggling to get feedback from a particularly quiet employee at his company. He asked the other folks in the room for advice about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if I asked the employee, \u2018How can I help you?<\/em>\u2019 Do you think that\u2019s a good question to ask him to encourage him to speak up?\u201d he pondered.<\/p>\n

A few other executives nodded their heads. \u201cYeah that seems like a good idea,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Another workshop participant spoke up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate that question,\u201d she shared candidly (and a bit sheepishly). \u201cWhen my own direct manager asks me that, I never know what to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone was perplexed\u200a\u2014\u200amyself included. How could asking to give help ever be a bad thing?<\/p>\n

But as she explained, it clicked for me. Despite being well-intentioned, here are three reasons why \u201cHow can I help you?\u201d is a terrible question to ask your employees:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s lazy.<\/h4>\n

When you ask, \u201cHow can I help you?\u201d you\u2019re not offering any specific ideas or suggestions for how you can be more helpful. Rather, you\u2019re relying on the employee to do the hard (and delicate) work of figuring out how you need to improve as a leader. Expecting that an employee will tell you what you should be doing better without presenting any thoughts on it yourself is, well, lazy.<\/p>\n

It puts pressure on the employee.<\/h4>\n

Can you imagine how daunting it is to tell your boss what she needs to be doing differently? That\u2019s what you\u2019re doing when you say, \u201cHow can I help?\u201d You\u2019re asking for holes to be poked, for flaws to be exposed\u2026 And the employee can\u2019t tell if you\u2019re really ready or not to hear it. Anytime you\u2019re speaking truth to power, it\u2019s intimidating. We cannot underestimate as leaders the power dynamic that exists between an employee and an employer. There isn\u2019t any incentive for an employee to critique or say something that might be perceived negatively by their boss. As a result, \u201cHow can I help you?\u201d puts pressure on the employee to give a diplomatic response, instead of an honest one.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s vague.<\/h4>\n

Now the employee is forced to quickly think through all the potential things that you could provide help with\u2026 On what project? On what area of the business? Should they mention communication? Should they talk about about timelines and deliverables? Should they bring up that thing that happened during that meeting last week? Or is the boss asking for something more high-level and strategic? It\u2019s tough to know exactly what you\u2019re asking for as a leader, when you ask the question, \u201cHow can I help?\u201d<\/p>\n

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So what should you ask\u00a0instead?<\/h4>\n

If you genuinely do want to know how you can help and support an employee, try this:<\/p>\n

Ask about something specific that you can give help on, first.<\/p>\n

Point out your own potential flaw, instead of waiting for your employee to point it out. Offer a critique of your own actions, instead waiting to see if it\u2019s something your employee brings up.<\/p>\n

The more you go first<\/a> and share what you think can be better, the more room you\u2019ll give your employee to give you an honest response about what they<\/em> think could be better.<\/p>\n

Here are some examples of specific questions you could ask\u2026<\/p>\n