Do You Ever Run Out of Questions?

If all you get out of this post is a reason to watch a funny Louis CK video clip, well that's ok with me, but I think if you read on, you might find some value here. BTW, for anyone that doesn't know Louis CK, he might say a few bad words here. Please don't watch this if you're sensitive to bad word or if your kids are reading your emails with you.

Now, imagine a 7 year old kid... Do you think they ever run out of questions?

Probably not. They just eventually fall asleep.

So a customer that has been using PropFuel for over a year, we'll call him Brendon, asked me this yesterday. "Do you think you can ever run out of questions to ask your team? I think we've asked everything."

Never having heard this question before, I fumbled some garbage out of my mouth and suggested he stop using PropFuel. I want to retract that statement now.

Here's my official response.

There are a couple ideas to think about when you think your questions are getting stale:

1. Look for trends - Trends are identified by asking a few key questions multiple times over the course of a long time. Some organizations ask the same questions every week because they want to create consistency in where to direct the team's attention. In some cases, that's on performance management type questions. Questions like, What did you accomplish last week? What's your #1 priority this week? What hurdles are in your way? Alternatively, there are other cases where you may want to get a measure of satisfaction from your team with an eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score). Would you recommend working here to a friend? Or how do you like your job this week? Or who would you nominate for Teammate of the Week this week?
2. Drill down on hot topics - Assuming you have lots of questions that you've gone through to get to the point of feeling stale, drill down into some from the past where you found something odd or interesting and ask the question again, maybe in another way to see if you can gather more information on the same topic. Try to learn more about the topics that triggered peculiar answers.
3. Try something new - Perhaps if you're feeling tired of reading the answers to your team's questions, then they're feeling tired of answering them. Change the frequency. Perhaps weekly is too often. Change it up to every other week or even monthly. Perhaps sending monthly check-ins with 5 or 6 questions is a better system for your team. And perhaps they're the same 5 or 6 questions each month to track trends or manage performance.

My perspective is that doing the same old thing over and over and over and over again can get stale. But I'm 47 and I have yet to run out of questions. Hopefully, you've watched Louis CK and taken 1 or 2 ideas out of my post.

If you have not signed up for PropFuel yet, set up a time to see a demo with me.

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Dave WillCEO and Co-FounderPropFueldave@propfuel.com(781) 985-9455www.propfuel.com