1. Discussing the Results
Further Defining Our Culture
Stop here and ask:
1) Who here has experience giving their teams feedback. 2) Who has experience receiving feedback from your team?
3) What did you find challenging? (find out there level of experience) 4) What value do you think this information has?

2. Why Discuss the Results?
To communicate the results back to the respondents
To explore some of the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’
To gain insight about attitudes, perceptions, behaviors and motivations
To give employees active involvement in defining the problem and creating the solution
Connections are made between people as they learn how others view the culture

3. Facilitate the Discussion
Good Facilitation Practices
Create a safe environment to share opinions openly
Listen actively
Probe for more detail in a nonthreatening way
Rephrase and restate what you have heard
Resist sharing your opinion – the objective here is to get the opinions of others
Draw out opinions from those less willing to speak up and share

4. Who Should Facilitate the Discussion?
Manager
If there is not fear of reprisals
If there is a precedent of open communication
If the manager can resist becoming defensive
Because they may be in the best position to take action to make changes or improvements
HR representative or third party
If there is fear of reprisals
If there is not a precedent of open communication
They are not in a position to take direct action

5. Who Should Participate in the Discussion?
Consider Reporting Structure
Will employees freely discuss issues that may have implications for managers or supervisors in the room?
Discussing issues with one level at a time often provides the safest environment for employees to be open
Consider Cross Department or Function Relationships
Is there a history of conflict between departments or functions?
Could open conversation between the departments or functions help improve communication between them?

6. Listening on a Personal Level
Active Listening is key to a productive discussion – listen to gain understanding
Ask clarifying questions in a non-threatening way
Treat those who speak up with respect
Thank them for their input
Be conscious of your tone – don’t talk down or be dismissive
Acknowledge the emotions as well as the facts stated by the employees
Restate what you have heard
This provides greater confidence to people that they have been heard
Restate the facts and the emotions in your own words

7. Listening as an Organizational Leader
Open communication is a key hallmark of high performing organizations
Leadership’s active listening shows the importance and value placed on employee input
The Listener must be open
Willing to accept responsibility
Not defensive (e.g. “we did this because…”)
Not looking to assign blame
Pay attention to any beliefs and assumptions that might be surfaced by the employees and be willing to ‘test’ them among the group (‘that’s an interesting belief…do others share that?’)

8. Questions to help get at Beliefs and Assumptions
When reviewing the culture scores ask:
Do you think these scores are a fair representation of what is going on in our organization?
Why or why not?
Listen for comments about the industry, leadership, employees and the competition
Work to further define any problem areas. Based on our Business Objectives…
What do you see in the data that is encouraging?
What do you see that is a concern?
Ask probing questions which will encourage open discussion

9. Having the Discussion
Ask open-ended and probing questions which allow them to help you understand the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ of the results
What are the key strengths of our culture?
What aspects of our culture need improvement?
What’s one thing we could start doing to improve our culture today?
What is one or two things we should continue doing keep our culture on track?
What’s one thing we should stop doing to improve our culture?