?Knowing which products and services to keep, which to kill, and which to create is a survival strategy these days?, says Francie Dalton, President of Washington, D.C. based Dalton Alliances, Inc. ?Unless you have ESP or a crystal ball?, she says, ?you better have data to undergird your decision making.?

?Even though business leaders would agree that evidence based decision making is absolutely crucial right now?, she says, ?they are loathe to invest in the very process that would best leverage their decisions.?

And what is that process? ?Surveying?, says Dalton. ?Businesses should be scrambling to use them. But the very word ?surveys? evokes weary sighs of rebuke from decision makers. They have become exasperated with high effort-low return surveys? she explains. ?And rightly so. The challenge is to reverse that outcome, so that surveys produce a high return for low effort?, she says.

According to Dalton, even seasoned professionals aren?t equipped to create surveys that will produce both valid input and a high response rate. ?You need a survey expert to do that? she says, ?and it?s worth every penny?. Her advice is relevant to all types of surveys, whether you?re:

• assessing the perceived quality of internal leadership and management regarding its ability to retain talent;
• determining client/member/board assessment of deliverables, and their anticipated future needs;
• capturing employee opinions and suggestions about what the organization should start and stop doing to achieve greater efficacy

Here are just a few of Dalton?s suggestions for ensuring a high response rate.

1. Customize the instrument: People are more willing to participate in that which they have a hand in creating. The survey becomes their own, and gains more respect than a generic instrument that is thrust upon them. Also worth noting is that respondents will imbue the results with greater credibility if they helped identify the issues about which questions should be included.

2. Include courageous questions: Successful surveys probe openly for vulnerabilities and suggestions on controversial issues. Milk-toast questions insult the intellect of respondents, and position the survey as a ?for appearances only? maneuver.

3. Protect Anonymity: Have your vendor explain specifically how respondent anonymity will be protected, including how narrative comments will be sanitized. State that the contract requires your vendor to eliminate names and to rephrase potentially transparent references to individuals.

4. Include a section for narrative comments: The most useful information often y resides within narrative commentary, yet many vendors prefer not to provide open ended questions because sanitizing them is so time consuming. Insist that narrative questions be included to elicit respondent input beyond what the quantitative section captures.

5. Share results with respondents and with staff: This is absolutely crucial. Withholding information impugns integrity, creates suspicion, and reduces engagement in remedial initiatives.

6. Commit in advance that remedial steps WILL be taken: Don?t promise to "fix" everything right away, but response rates go up when those surveyed believe that their input will make a difference. Although it's not possible to promise what specific steps will be taken, it is possible to describe the types of remedial steps that may be needed and to consider respondent input in prioritizing next steps.

7. Include respondents in remedial efforts: Improving poor scores isn't solely the job of management; all relevant parties should be encouraged to engage in stewarding the design and execution of improvements.

8. Publicize, Publicize, Publicize. Prior to launch and while the instrument is "in the field", the executive team must "talk it up" at every opportunity, expressing interest in the coming results and demonstrating a spirit of openness to change.

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Francie Dalton, CMC, is founder and president of Dalton Alliances, Inc, a Washington D.C. based consultancy specializing in the communication, management, and behavioral sciences.  Her new book, ?Versatility? and more information about her offerings can be found at www.daltonalliances.com.  Reach her for an interview at 800-442-3603.