The Art of Asking: Effective Evaluation Metrics | What They Really Mean and How to Use Them

If you're looking to understand evaluation metrics, you won't want to miss this podcast episode! We emphasize the importance of selecting relevant and actionable metrics, encourage the use of open-ended questions to capture a complete picture, and remind evaluators to consider societal norms and strive for equity and inclusivity. Learn how to effectively evaluate and improve your processes with our expert advice on evaluation metrics. Tune in now to "The Art of Asking: Effective Evaluation Metrics | What They Really Mean and How to Use Them."

1. Choose meaningful metrics
2. Ask open-ended questions
3. Consider societal norms

Transcript

we are live
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[Music]
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welcome to two minds today with your
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host Charlene Authority and leadership
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development and Hala an expert Community
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Builder the Pod all about best practices
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to get you noticed and ahead in your
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professional life
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hello hello hello how are you doing
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Charlene I'm good
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I'm good doing oh it's been a long it's
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been uh two weeks this time usually
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we're at the week yeah we miss our group
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we I we we did miss our group
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um how are you doing what's happening
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with you
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I am good thank you I had a lot of time
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to think about our topic that's coming
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up this week ah yes I feel like it is
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such a good topic we are talking about
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I'll throw it up on the screen for those
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watching live is the art of asking we're
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talking about effective evaluation
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metrics what they mean how to use them
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and I feel like this is really apropos
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because I I think everyone is on a
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different work schedule but I know in
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springtime a lot of people are coming up
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with
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um uh different evaluation and program
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ends and even maybe your personal work
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evaluation is coming up so we thought we
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would dive in today on really
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um we all do a lot of evaluations but
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what does that really mean and when
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should we be doing them which I think
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leads us to our first question
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that's right so our first question
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really is how do we do this evaluation
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it's choosing meaningful metrics right
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what kind of evaluation do we do and how
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do we set about it if you're developing
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it or
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what do you do
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what are your thoughts
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yeah
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so choosing meaningful metrics I really
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Scrolls scroll back in my mind to what
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are you when do you actually want to
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know
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um and I think that you need to ask
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questions based on the answers you
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actually want to know
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um and I would even add to say don't ask
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questions that you're not going to do
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anything about right like we how many
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times do we ask for things on feedback
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and then we're like yeah we know that
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the room was cold but there's nothing we
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could do about it right or whatever my
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new show is coming I absolutely love
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that I also would put in that category
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asking questions where you already know
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the answers to right if you don't if you
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don't need to know like where are you
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working because this evaluation is
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exactly that same company please don't
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ask don't ask if it's in the U.S if your
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company is in the U.S because all of
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that makes it less likely for people to
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fill out an evaluation because you're
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taking up valuable time get right to the
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point of what you want if you want if
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you don't really need people's names and
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you want it to be anonymous don't put it
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up front make it be the very last thing
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after people have already vested their
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time in it so go right right into asking
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your questions and forget about all that
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extra that
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makes you feel like you're wasting your
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time as you're filling out that
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evaluation I often um just as you said
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as the last one to be like if you would
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like someone to get back to you provide
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your name and email here and
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um otherwise I don't and I so I feel
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like twofold on that one I absolutely
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never ever ever think a survey I'm
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taking is anonymous I don't care who has
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convinced me it's Anonymous I don't
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believe it for a second I just feel like
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there's too much technology out there
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and I I've had data people like this
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one's really Anonymous I'm like okay
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it's probably not or maybe it kind of is
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um but the more information you put into
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the survey it is probably not a loss
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none of us so I'm just I'm saying that
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right
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um and that's a really good point
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actually with respect to the more
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information because people can always
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just like you know Whittle it down and
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figure out oh you work in this
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department you're a female in this
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department well there's only two females
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and we know the one who never fills it
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out so boom right so you have to be yeah
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which makes it by the way more weary of
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people to fill out the evaluation so
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think about it if you actually want to
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get information don't over ask
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yes and yes ask what's relevant ask
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what's meaningful ask what's going to
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get you the answers you're looking for
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are you looking to improve are you
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looking for just validation that you did
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something right or wrong
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um just really think about it and and I
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just did a Survey Monkey survey and
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what's cool about that is it will give
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you your estimated time for how long it
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will take to fill um fill it out I think
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that's really good for a user end
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whereas like this was a three-minute
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survey this is how long it'll take you
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to fill out I think that's super helpful
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I agree with you 100 and keeping is what
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I was saying before don't make it too
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long right the minute I see a survey
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that's like 10 minutes forget it I don't
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have 10 minutes to give anybody and it
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sounds like 10 minutes isn't such a long
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time but in our fast-paced world where
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you have your phone in your hand and
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you've got a lot of other distractions
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going on if you want something make it
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quick make it fast you know right off
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the bat I also recommend people that if
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you're doing a survey if at all possible
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check in there where you can respond
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right away by the click in the body
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don't have it like redirect to somewhere
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else where you then yeah
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ask your one or two questions right off
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the bat at the bottom of that email text
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whatever form of communication that
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you're using I love that if you can do
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it okay so let's go on to our next thing
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to ask open-ended questions all right so
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tell me about this a lot what do you
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mean by what do we mean by ask
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open-ended questions yeah so it's a good
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you know when you fill out surveys what
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do you prefer Charlene do you prefer the
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multiple choice I am the people that
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hate filling out these surveys because I
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don't believe that they're Anonymous I I
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also and and and I may Loop to this a
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different time but I am so open and
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transparent anybody can ask me anything
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and I will give you direct and honest
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feedback but in these evaluations I'm
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like everything's awesome which we'll
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we'll get to in a little bit oh that's
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so interesting so you would rather have
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since you think that it's all like you
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know canned and all being watched by Big
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Brother you just want to like click your
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ABCD be done with it or your scale of
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one to ten you don't like the open-ended
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questions that requires you to like I
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write what you actually think in your
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mind so what's interesting today is
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we're looking at it sort of um
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simultaneously from both points of view
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right from the survey filler outer to
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the survey asker right as someone who
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creates surveys and facilitates them for
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people to answer I really like almost
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skip the numbers and go right to the
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open-ended questions because I feel like
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that is where I'm getting
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um the most information right if you ask
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the question
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um whatever did you like session a and
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it's a one to five scale they give it a
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three or two or one or a five I have no
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idea did you give it a five because you
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were in a good mood that day and it
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resonated did you give it a one because
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you were
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um because the speaker was ah like was
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having a bad day did you give it a three
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because you just weren't there and
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actually had weren't paying attention
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and you were getting your coffee and
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going to the bathroom when when it came
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in so I find like one through fives
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um less useful as information
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um one thing that was was really
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interesting is it was a one through five
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rating and then after that the follow-up
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question is like why did you give it a
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one through five and I'm like oh that's
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helpful right yeah so that is helpful
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but that just takes up more time right
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so you have to be very very thoughtful
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when you're creating the survey what is
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it exactly that you want to get at and I
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do understand the sense of we're taking
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up people's time and we have them we
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have a captured audience let's get as
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much information out of them as we can
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but what you risk when you push that
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envelope of getting as much information
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as possible is falling in that category
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of getting no useful information
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whatsoever because I just I'm gonna fill
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out anything I possibly can to get to
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the next step which is claim my ten
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dollar check or be finished with this
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because then I'm going to get my credit
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for this course that I took so you're
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not going to pay attention and really
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fill it out honestly when I'm creating
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in a vacuum I think the three best
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questions you can ask are what did I
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learn it's a quick check on did you
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actually learn anything what did I value
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why was it interesting to somebody and
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that's real specific but it's very
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helpful if you can collect the data and
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three what would I change because
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otherwise people will be like nothing
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and sometimes you still get nothing but
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sometimes you get really great feedback
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and like
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um because someone
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when you're giving feedback your thing
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is done and it's over right so you're
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like it's over what would I change I
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don't know I would have eaten more
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before I went to class but like when you
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think that the session is being run
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again for the future of like Hey we're
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running this again what would you
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suggest we change for the next group of
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people you get really good responses in
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my opinion and what I like about those
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three questions is that it's not really
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wasting someone's time you're like yeah
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you're authentically asking someone
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about their experience and I think
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that's where people are tired people are
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are tired of giving information that
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goes nowhere people are tired of having
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their time spent filling out data points
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and yep being a part of that whole data
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machine but um let's go on to our next
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things we're talking about that data
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machine because we want to give you a
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little bit of insight about how that
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data machine really works behind the
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scenes when you are filling out the
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quantitative type of surveys that are
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asking you to fill out one to ten or one
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to five yeah so I recently saw Tick Tock
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that reminded me of something I already
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knew which is always because I was like
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oh yeah I totally forgot about that so
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it was a someone talking about service
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calls you know when you call your cable
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company and they're like we have a
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survey following this can you mind
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filling it out blah blah and The Tick
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Tock was like this is a reminder you are
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not actually evaluating how awful the
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call was that the cable person was not
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able to help you in any way shape or
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form you are actually serving if they
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get to keep their job or not and by the
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way tense like when it's one through ten
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ten only because nine is fe8 they're
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already you're already on the negative
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downswing and people are literally
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evaluated so this color that was not
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able to help you in any way shape or
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form because of the way their company is
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set up and they're not actually just
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able to help you you're like oh that was
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annoying they were fine but I'm giving
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them a seven that's actually already
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down on the negative and we think like
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seven that's great it is not great tens
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only um if you don't want to hurt the
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other person I mean that's an effect and
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it's so interesting right we just came
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off of asking an open-ended questions
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and the importance of getting real data
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and what we're saying now is if it's
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numerical based forget about the real
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data because everything is skewed it's
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not what you once used to think if you
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think you have a one to ten scale you
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really have to give a 10 no matter what
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because there's some real life impact
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that happens since people aren't really
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sitting there parsing out these surveys
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and filling it out in a nuanced way most
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people are saying ten five zero they're
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not cutting it out they're not splicing
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it so the data that comes out on the
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other end has real impact
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I would say you can fill out and you can
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put whatever you want I will just let
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you know that I think it's tens of nines
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are you're fine sevens and eights are
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neutral under seven is is a negative so
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I think it's fine just when you are
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filling it also like that's important to
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read Because You're Gonna your next your
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if you are not um in a situation where
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your boss or your supervisor like in
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this call center who are actually being
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evaluated by these numbers and you can
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emotionally take a Beat from this and
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recalibrate yourself that's fantastic
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then you can look at the numbers well
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but what I would say then though as an
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employer who's giving out these surveys
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or an employee who's giving it out to
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their customers whatever it is please
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take that moment to educate the people
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filling out the survey and let them know
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exactly that that if you're satisfied
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you give a 10. we understand it's a one
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to ten scale but honestly there's really
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three numbers that matter ten I keep my
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job bad
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seven I don't whatever the real life
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modification is and that's it and you
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tell and I want you to be honest and I
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want you to fill it out but we want you
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to understand what these numbers really
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mean and it's okay I believe to say that
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to people that are filling it out
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because people don't always know what it
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is and they have their own preconceived
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notions so I think uh we are coming up
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to the end of this podcast tell me
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Charlene what's your takeaway today all
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right so one you're going to ask
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questions that you actually want answers
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to choose meaningful metrics two we're
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asking open-ended questions I will also
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say that um for open-ended questions
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always make them optional so that you
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don't lose people but you can still get
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the feedback and keep in the back of
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your mind if someone's taking the time
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to write they probably really liked it
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and really or really didn't and you kind
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of are missing out on the middle Zone
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but that's okay just know that when
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you're reading it and three are awkward
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societal Norms now where sevens are bad
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just know it and own it
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absolutely I love that summary and next
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week come back and stay tuned because
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we're going to talk about how to deal
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with this feedback that we get yep all
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right thank you all for joining and we
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will see you next time let's see I was
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gonna do a little outro music for us
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today let's see if I can find some outro
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music let's do that
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and in the meantime everyone remember to
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learn a little more every day the uh
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foreign



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