So many times we ask the following questions:

• "How can we improve?"
• "How can we be better?"
• "What can we do to be better?"
• "What's wrong?"

And while these are valid and often valuable questions, there is a question that should be asked prior:

What are we doing right? What's going well?

So many times companies look at what's wrong, or try to figure out what's "broken" in their efforts to make positive change. And when they come to the "answer" or program or policy or incentive or process that they think will make a difference they end up undoing what's been working well.

Because "what's been working well" becomes invisible. It's taken for granted.

Sometimes all you need to do to improve your employee happiness is to simply enhance or expand something that is already going well.

Ask your employees one simple question - What do you appreciate about working here - big and small?

This simple question can also bring to employees' minds why they do like working for your organization. It's a good mental exercise to have them focus on the positive.

The feedback you will receive will be invaluable. You might be surprised that the soft toilet paper in the bathroom is a bigger perk than you thought, and that the small cost savings to cheap sandpaper would cause an expensive effect on morale. You might also find that nobody really calls out the new groovy expensive incentive you all recently put in place.

What is your company doing well?