OPINIONS? CHEAP! FACTS? PRICELESS!

What if your CFO would ask managers about their opinion on how much they had spent (‘not that much,’ ‘a lot’) rather than get the hard numbers?

That organization would be bankrupt in no time. Yet, exactly that happens in 95% of consultancy projects: asking for opinions.

DIVE-IN WITH OUR AMAIZE ARTICLE

don’t ask for opinions, check for verifiable facts

You must have seen the Likert scale every now and then. Nearly every survey tool uses them:

Managers and employees add a cognitive and/or emotional meaning to opinion questions thus adding bias and blurring the outcomes: bad fuel for algorithms. Why not keep it factual, instead? Let’s translate this Likert question into a format that asks for verifiable facts or behaviour in a so-called Guttman-Poll scale (for employee polling):

Now, we can do some serious calculating. The advantages add up.



ACCURACY

Verifiable answers are measurable and objective. There is a factor 50 (!)
less lying.



TARGETS

Answers with a timeline format (Actual vs. Ambition) reveal smart target settings.



STEP-BY-STEP

A Virtual Consultant gives advice how to improve from one answer to the next.



BUDDY MAP

Need to improve to eg. Answer 3? Check a co-worker who is already there.
And vice-versa.

OPINIONS ARE CHEAP, FACTS ARE PRICELESS

What if your CFO would ask managers about their opinion on how much they had spent (‘not that much,’ ‘a lot’) rather than get the hard numbers?

That organization would be bankrupt in no time. Yet, exactly that happens in 95% of consultancy projects: asking for opinions.

DIVE-IN WITH OUR AMAIZE ARTICLE

don’t ask for opinions, check for verifiable facts

You must have seen the Likert scale every now and then. Nearly every survey tool uses them:

Managers and employees add a cognitive and/or emotional meaning to opinion questions thus adding bias and blurring the outcomes: bad fuel for algorithms. Why not keep it factual, instead? Let’s translate this Likert question into a format that asks for verifiable facts or behaviour in a so-called Guttman-Poll scale (for employee polling):

Now, we can do some serious calculating. The advantages add up.



ACCURACY

Verifiable answers are measurable and objective. There is a factor 50 (!)
less lying.



TARGETS

Answers with a timeline format (Actual vs. Ambition) reveal smart target settings.



STEP-BY-STEP

A Virtual Consultant gives advice how to improve from one answer to the next.



BUDDY MAP

Need to improve to eg. Answer 3? Check a co-worker who is already there. And vice-versa.

OPINIONS ARE CHEAP, FACTS ARE PRICELESS

What if your CFO would ask managers about their opinion on how much they had spent (‘not that much,’ ‘a lot’) rather than get the hard numbers?

That organization would be bankrupt in no time. Yet, exactly that happens in 95% of consultancy projects: asking for opinions.

DEEPER DIVE-IN

don’t ask for opinions, check for verifiable facts

You must have seen the Likert scale every now and then. Nearly every survey tool uses them:

Managers and employees add a cognitive and/or emotional meaning to opinion questions thus adding bias and blurring the outcomes: bad fuel for algorithms. Why not keep it factual, instead? Let’s translate this Likert question into a format that asks for verifiable facts or behaviour in a so-called Guttman-Poll scale (for employee polling):