R quotient. Just made that up. It’s tough continuing to come up with new material when the problems and challenges facing management today are consistently the same.

So what is your R(Reality) – Quotient?

Your R Quotient is the relationship between what is really going on in your organization or department and what you think or believe is going on. Let me explain.

If your organization culture is not safe and empowering my bet is that you are not totally in touch with the problems, opportunities, challenges, issues etc that face your employees every day. If however, you feel your employees are being totally honest with you about the realities of daily life in their department or the organization as a whole then congratulations might be in order. Notice I said might!

Over the years I have had numerous executives and managers proudly tell me that their employees were completely honest with the realities of the organization and yet when asked, these same employees wanted any bottom-up feedback or employee surveys to be anonymous. DA.

How can you know if the culture in your organization is safe and honest and the information you are receiving from employees and departments is really the truth?

I have interviewed thousands of employees of my client organizations during the past thirty years and I can tell you that there are more executives dealing in fantasy-land than there are in reality-land (just made that up too. I’m in a creative mood today.)

Here are a few things to consider when assessing the culture of your organization to determine its honesty and safety (And I’m not talking about physical safety.)

1. Can you handle bad news? What is your typical reaction to bad news from an employee? Defensive? Angry? Receptive? Open? Enthusiastic? Concerned? Etc.

2. Do you think your direct reports are getting honest bottom-up information from their employees? All of them? Or are certain ones getting integrity and others, due to their management style still operating in the dark ages?

3. Have you ever done a third party (consulting firm, survey firm, training company) culture audit? If yes, do you feel employees were honest? If not why not? If you haven’t ever conducted one why not? Don’t need one? Insecure? Don’t want to know? Etc.

4. Is communication at meetings edited or open and honest? Are your staff meetings typically top-down or bottom-up in their sharing?

5. Are ALL of your direct reports honest with you? If not which ones and why not?

6. Are the goals of your organization clear to everyone? Certain groups? Certain departments? Certain employees? Why?

7. Is your strategy clear to everyone who needs to know it? How do you know? Why not ask your direct reports a simple question – What is our corporate strategy? If you get “how’ stuff’ it isn’t clear to them. If you get what stuff and it is consistent, pat yourself on the back.

8. Are new employees indoctrinated into the culture and organizational history and philosophy or just their position responsibilities?

9. Is your turnover excessive? Are you losing good employees? Managers?

10. If you had to guess what percentage of employees, including managers, have their resume on the street?

These should keep you busy for a while. If you want more just call me.

So, what do you think your R Quotient is o a 1-10 scale – – – 10 perfect – 1 better think about retiring.