360 Feedback Blog

The Struggling Manager says: ‘How do you succeed with 360 degree reviews? Easy. Never do them’…..Here’s my response…

Hi Stuggling Manager

Great article.  I love it so much that I’ve tagged it and linked to it from my blog.  It’s great (and I’m not being ironic) because it says everything that people say who don’t like 360 Degree Feedback, or who’ve had a bad experience with 360, or whose organisation does 360 very badly.   All of which are valid points of view.

Can I ask you a couple of questions though…?

• Who told you that 360 is a scientific survey? Whoever they were, they lied!  As a 360 practitioner I can tell you that 360 is a subjective, observational exercise, not a scientific measurement or a personality test.The idea is that you get some observations, on the same behaviours, from a number of different people.  If you start hearing the same message from a number of different people, it might be worth taking some notice…
• As you say, asking someone ‘what kind of a manager’ John is, is completely unhelpful. Of course you’re going to get unfocused generalisations and opinions based on people’s theories about personality. That’s why good 360 doesn’t ask you those kinds of questions.
• “Criticism never is useful”..Really?! Have you never heard something about yourself from a friend or family member that made you do something different?
• How much politicking have you seen around 360? OK, there could be some, but do people really have the time to manipulate feedback to such an extent as to make a difference? In my experience this is rare- of course if you use 360 to determine salaries and promotions that might be the case, but you really shouldn’t use it to do that - very dangerous.
• I so agree with you about jargon, ‘thinking out of the box’ and the rest of it.  That’s why 360 questions have to be worded clearly, focus on actual, observable behaviours, and not woolly or managment-speak.  As well as structured questions, a good 360 will also have a section that allows you to give some clear behavioural feedback, just like your great examples.  We use, for example, things you would like your colleague to start, stop and continue doing.
• “360 degree reviews exist only because effective management is not there to fill the void”. What kind of managers have you had, Struggling Manager? And yes, managers should be giving you feedback, but what about all the other people you work with? Don’t you think that they might be able to give you some helpful insights too, that they might prefer not to tell you face to face (e.g. tells jokes when others are starting to appear frustrated)?

You see I think when you say 360 feedback, you really mean bad 360 feedback.  Am I right? Hope to hear from you!

Very best regards
Jo