The other weekend, my husband’s goddaughter was confirmed. When I asked her what the best thing is about going to church, she responded with “praying” – what a truly delightful thing to hear an eight-year-old say.

This got me thinking – how often do we actually ask our teams and our customers what the best thing about our organisation is? What is already great that we can improve on? 

A common question in employee and customer surveys or events feedback is: ‘if there was one thing we could do to improve, what would it be?’ Now, this is definitely a valid and important question – and I know that given an open text box people will almost certainly give more than one improvement that can be made (even if it is ‘could have provided more biscuits!’). But if we prelude this question with a note of positivity and ask the question: ‘what is the best thing about working for/shopping with/having services from/attending this event with our organisation?’, then we can build on the magic we have already created. 

I know when I have asked this question in the past, there have been a range of answers. In the context of an employee survey, probably the most common response is ‘the people’ or ‘my colleagues’, and even ‘knowing that what I do is helping others’; occasionally you’ll get the response of ‘going home is the best thing’ or even ‘getting paid’. But at least this question is opening up to the idea of creating positivity. 

Collating the responses to this question can really help you to understand the culture within your organisation – you can see patterns and pockets of excellence and build on this across with whole business. It will allow you to delve a little deeper into these areas to find the whys behind the answers and looking for a way of replicating this across the business? You can even use this in promotions and soundbites – so share them with you marketing and communication teams.