Laszlo Bock, former SVP of people operations at Google and current CEO of Humu, wrote an article earlier this year for Fast Company entitled “Your employee engagement survey is destroying your company’s culture”. In case you haven’t noticed, engagement surveys are EVERYWHERE. Everyone who’s anyone’s doing them. And everyone else is selling them. Regardless of your or my thoughts or concerns on the reliability of these surveys or credibility of those selling them or the ethics behind them or who owns or sells the data, they can often provide some valuable insights.

That’s why I like Bock’s piece. It’s an insightful piece that, while necessarily promoting his company’s offering as superior in the marketplace, actually offers tips on how to make the most of your engagement survey attempt. Well worth the 3 minute read, and certainly worth bringing those tips back to the team for consideration. Well, except one.

There’s something he and I disagree on. And it’s a pretty big deal.

Today’s engagement surveys are being used to do something that they are simply not capable of. And the designers, data scientists and action-tasked go-getters are partially to blame for the misuse.

They’re kind of doing that thing your CEO does every time the newest issue of HBR magazine hits his desk.

You see, what employee engagement companies are doing is trying their hand at organizational change by allowing insights and algorithms to recommend change, and even transformation. But there’s something inherently wrong with this, that any actual change practitioner would poke holes in – it is just one single source of data. Often unreliable, invalid, and spotty data at best. Anyone who makes sweeping changes, or worse, presents these computer-generated organizational change recommendations to their C-suite should consider throwing in the towel on their career. Unless that C-suite is the HBR type.

This is why I believe that Bock’s assertion that one should “Do Something - Anything” with this data is misguided, no matter how it’s sliced, diced, AI-infused, or (insert food pun here). It’s actually dangerous and irresponsible.

Real organization diagnosis and change requires more than just engagement data to form sound and effective recommendations and corresponding actions. Sure, these surveys can help you determine whether the lunch thief on the 5th floor is hurting morale, or whether the air freshener in the restroom needs to be changed more often. Ok, that’s not fair. They’re more useful than that.

My point is the average HR or operations person doesn’t know what to do with this data. And the answer should be doing closer to nothing than anything. Because this data alone can’t do what the engagement companies want you to think it can do. So, for your employees’ sake, stop thinking that it’s the best thing since sliced bread, or whatever it is people are saying these days. And for your organization’s sake, don’t go wasting time and money on achieving short-sighted results.

To be fair, there is some value in Bock’s suggestion to do something rather than nothing. I can’t disagree with that in principle insofar as it is usually better to respond to feedback with action than with silence or inaction. But is a knee-jerk response the most effective thing to do? Will it make a meaningful, long lasting impact? Hardly, and you’d be lucky if it held you over until the next survey.

At the risk of playing semantics, another way to say it is an engagement survey may help you make changes (i.e. whether the snacks in the break room need a refresh), but real, lasting change and resulting business outcomes can only be achieved by methodical diagnosis and change efforts.

So what you should do? For starters, think about what you’re really trying to achieve. Compile data from 3-4 other sources and take a really hard look at it all. Envision possibilities and how they align with your company’s mission. Put together a plan, and over-communicate on it. And don’t forget to involve your people along the way. Lastly, if you want to target specifics and structure your effort try a diagnostic model like Weisbord’s Six Box Model. Only then will you start to embark on a meaningful change journey instead of sticking a band-aid on a symptom of a larger problem that you still don’t know exists. And you might preserve your culture in the process.