Employee involvement: why top management sees only 4% of the problems

Melt the iceberg of ignorance: in a classic study, Sidney Yoshida described how 96% of an organisation’s problems never reach top management. Is it any different today? Hardly. But there is a way.

By Jesper Riedel and Sara Kragelund

Adaptability and insight are the key to success

We work in a world that changes fast, marked by constant technological progress, changing customer needs and shifting social and environmental expectations. Demands for sustainability, developments in AI and flexible working models are challenging traditional business models and the way we work together. Companies and public organisations have to adapt quickly and effectively to stay competitive and relevant. And to find the right solutions, leaders should draw on the knowledge and insight of their employees: it isn’t enough to rely on top-down decisions from the boardroom. It takes a culture of collaboration and co-creation, where employees are encouraged to share ideas and insight, and are genuinely involved in the change process.

An iceberg of ignorance

Sidney Yoshida’s “Iceberg of Ignorance” shows how problems and information are distributed in an organisation: only 4% of the problems are known to top management, 9% to middle management, 74% to supervisors and 100% to the employees on the ground. In other words, the vast majority of an organisation’s problems are unknown to top management.

Many solutions have been tried over the years, with mixed success: focus groups, an open mic at the all-hands meeting, or meetings between frontline employees and top management. But they’re hard to scale, and frankly they often give only a glimpse of what’s really going on in the organisation.

We need a better approach

Most organisations regularly use surveys to take the temperature of employee satisfaction and wellbeing. They give quick, data-driven, scalable insights that can be compared across departments and over time. But a survey only shows how many people chose a predefined answer, not the reasoning behind it. And employees’ ideas are hard to act on afterwards. The result is that management is often left with more questions than answers.

Is your organisation ready to embrace change?

A Gartner survey of 274 HR leaders (Leadership Vision 2023) found that more than half of employees are experiencing change fatigue, driven by both major organisational changes and small everyday adjustments. But according to Gartner, employees who are actively engaged and have ownership of the process are 1.5 times more willing to change, and the change is 14 times more likely to succeed.

Could going online actually be the answer?

Most of us have had our fill of online meetings and enjoy meeting in person. But when it comes to involving employees in feedback or co-creation sessions, the traditional meeting falls short: a small handful of extroverts take up most of the airtime, while the people who stay quiet may be sitting on the most important information. In-person meetings are also shaped by groupthink and bias. There will always be things that don’t get said out loud.

Scalable conversations open up what the organisation knows

What if we could scale conversations and let people answer in their own words instead of choosing a predefined option? And let participants rate and build on each other’s answers in a live online conversation? That’s exactly what today’s tools make possible. With smart facilitation and online tools, we’ve turned traditional feedback and co-creation sessions into engaging processes where everyone gets a say at the same time, on a large scale. Conversations can be scaled from a few to thousands of participants, and more perspectives and ideas than ever can be gathered and evaluated.

When employees share their thoughts in their own words and build on other people’s contributions, the feedback becomes more authentic and more varied. And because the process is anonymous, bias drops out and people take part more honestly. As one client put it after a workshop: “It was a bit like being in a sci-fi film, because we could see what they were writing as they wrote it, how many agreed and how quickly. It was like getting a look inside the group’s whole thought process.”

And there’s more to gain: when everyone has the chance to take part and contribute, participants feel heard and valued. People take more ownership of the change and commit to it. In the end everyone wins: employees are more satisfied, and the organisation succeeds.

It’s time to create real employee involvement with scalable conversations. Also read The hybrid workplace will never succeed without serious employee involvement, or get in touch if you’d like to hear how we facilitate scalable conversations in practice.