Not every time, but sometimes, its really helpful to ask people to translate their feelings into numbers… just a simple scale of 1-10.

It’s great because it avoids too-positive and too-negative assumptions. When someone says, “Yeah, I’m ok” what do they really mean? Can you trust your gut to read their facial expressions and non-verbal cues? The fact is, I’ve been married for 14 years, and I still have trouble working out how “ok” Julie is when she says she’s “ok”. So how do you expect to know your staff, your members.

So ask them to put it on a scale… “1-10 How are you dealing with this? 1 being a complete mental breakdown, 10 being like you don’t even think about it?”

If their “ok” turns out to be a 3, you’re going to deal with them and help them very differently to if they’re a 7.

And the good thing is, there are loads of categories; how tired are you feeling? What’s your energy levels? etc..