Who cares wins

Listening without acting is worse than not listening at all

I loved talking with Rebecca Crosby from Ipsos Karian and Box the other day about their new survey, Who Cares Wins: Why Employee Listening (and Acting) Shows You Care and Why That Matters.

I’m thrilled that we are now seeing dedicated research beginning to explore the reality of listening in organisations, in this case particularly through the lens of surveys. I often talk about how we’re entering an Age of Listening, and seeing more dedicated research confirms it.

Here are a couple of insights that really stood out to me.

One headline from the report resonated deeply: listening without acting can be worse than not listening at all. When you ask people for their views and then fail to act, it doesn’t just feel like inaction it actively erodes trust.

I make a distinction between hearing and listening. Hearing is simply the act of receiving employee input, feedback, and views. Listening happens when you 'respond appropriately', with both words mattering. Responding alone isn’t enough. If an organisation takes three months (or longer) to share their survey results they are responding but this is not appropriate.

For me, survey fatigue doesn't come from running too many surveys. It happens when we run too many surveys that make no difference. So I was quite pleasantly surprised that the report finds that employees who receive 2–4 surveys per year are most likely to feel their organisation conducts the right number. That feels like a good number if employees are seeing value from their responses.

I was encouraged to hear from Rebecca that only 23% of employees see no action is taken after a survey. This was lower than I feared and if three out of four employees are seeing action, that’s a strong signal that organisations are listening.

The bottom line remains that simply asking for input, hearing, isn’t enough. The real power comes from listening, where you are set up to continually respond appropriately.