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MAP consulting is out with their latest Quarterly CEO Survey. Here's the lead copy from their site.

"While CEOs ante up to the challenges of today's competitive pressures and the current economic conditions, they're recognizing the power of people. Whether better managing their company's clients, employees or both, today's CEOs are strengthening business by building stronger relationships with these individuals."

And, a little further down in the release, we find this.

"Almost 70 percent of these company leaders are motivating staff with simple, yet effective, non-financial rewards, such as verbal and written recognition."

Really? You can't count on that for an accurate description of reality because you're asking the wrong person.

Don't ask the CEOs to tell you how they're doing. Ask the people who work for the CEOs, preferably as far away on the org chart as possible.

Human beings, even CEOs, rate themselves by intent. That's what's happening here.

To get any real value from a survey like this, you have to know what "non-financial rewards, such as verbal and written recognition" means. What are the companies actually doing?

Then you have to find out how it's working. You won't find that out from the man or woman at the top of the org chart. You need to chat with some of the people at the bottom.

One more thing. When you talk to that person at the bottom of the chart, you won't get an answer about what the CEO is doing. You'll get an answer about what that person's boss is doing and how it's working.

Boss's Bottom Line

If you want to know how you're doing and how your people are doing the best way to find out is to talk to them. Have real conversations. Lots of them. Several a day.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.