A fast food receipt read: “Rate us a Highly Satisfied and Receive a BOGO Sandwich.” What kind of survey mechanism is this? Instead of soliciting accurate data about how well the restaurant is doing, it will falsely skew the results in a favorable direction, overemphasizing the positive. Any negative feedback has the likelihood of being discounted due to lower numbers.
It’s not just restaurants that rig the system to get good reviews. Some managers create a culture in which only positive comments are welcome. While they don’t dish out a BOGO sandwich, they achieve the same results by delusionally believing that, because they only hear good things, all must be well.
In the book Good to Great, Jim Collins noted that the great companies confronted the brutal facts. They may be hard to hear, but knowing you have problems or performance issues is the first step toward correcting them. Don’t delude yourself by insulating your input from bad news. The ones you want to reward are those who speak the truth, even when it’s hard to hear.
