The annual health check-up that doesn’t involve cold hands or large needles

Very few people wake up and say to themselves, “You know what? You’ve worked really hard recently, why not treat yourself to a full health check-up! And go all in and get the extra painful (and painfully awkward) tests, and double the number of intrusive questions about your exercise and diet that you never tell the truth about! You deserve it!”

Ignorance might be bliss, but it’s also, by definition, ignorance.

Not knowing something’s wrong doesn’t make that ache, pain, or rash (that’s definitely bigger and maybe a bit greener?!?) get magically better.

And then there’s the humiliation factor. During health checks, we’re at our most vulnerable. Unless we know we’re 100% perfect (and who is), it’s very easy to feel judged – the doctor’s wide-eyed look when reviewing questions about your alcohol intake, or the sudden frantic beeping from the blood-pressure monitor, or the dreaded, “I’m going to get my colleague for a second opinion.”

But how many serious ailments have been avoided by swallowing your pride and finding out for sure if something minor is having a major impact on your future health?

It’s no different for organizations.

Few leadership teams really want to know about those small issues they have concerns about, or how much of the grapevine scuttlebutt is true, or why employees generally seem less enthusiastic than they were last year.

Ignorance isn’t bliss. It lets problems grow unchecked, damages team culture, degrades employee engagement and satisfaction and ultimately, affects the health of the organization.

The good news is that organizational check-ups don’t have to be painful and don’t involve cold hands, judgmental glares, or large needles. The ‘well at work Employee Survey’ is a simple diagnostic tool that’s easy to administer, and gives you a detailed breakdown of what’s going well and what might need more attention.

Even if the results aren’t what you hoped for, it’s always better to know what the problem is than to put your fingers in your ears, hum loudly, and pretend everything’s fine.

So, what kind of leader are you – the fearless truth-seeker, or the deluded hummer???