Changing abrasive behaviour with feedback
October 7th, 2009 | Published in 360 Degree Feedback, Feedback, Management skills, management development, motivation | 2 Comments
In this article from Management Today the writer describes a common situation: someone who refuses to accept the feedback they have recieved from their colleagues.
I would say that this happens in every organisation that has people in it, i.e. every organisation! It’s less about conflict and more that there is always a small percentage who do not accept feedback, either because of their own insecurity, their lack of trust in the feedback methodology, or lack of trust in their organisation.
1. People need to thoroughly understand how the 360 Degree Feedback is gathered and how the resulting scores are calculated. This is especially important for analytically-minded people who will tend to believe it more if they can understand the numbers! Guaranteeing confidentiality is also important.
2. Each individual getting 360 degree feedback also needs to make a choice as to what in the feedback is important and relevant to them, and why, so help from their coach or mentor is important.
3. Acceptance comes only after shock, denial, then questioning and understanding, very much like the response cycle to bad news or events. You need to give people time to get through this cycle. (Click here to download our guide on Helping People to Deal with Difficult Feedback).
4. Finally there is the ultimate choice: if the person totally refuses to listen to feedback and agree to change (’that’s just the way I am’), as an organisation, are you willing to continue to support and promote that person, and put them in charge of other people, despite their abrasive behaviour? That’s where organisations usually have the greatest difficulty, particularly if someone is a good revenue earner…
November 14th, 2009 at 1:27 pm (#)
If an employee is not in a management or team lead position and is not looking for such a position, can the employer force him to take any kind of 360 feedback against the employee’s wishes?
I understand that the participant is supposed to invite the raters. So if he/she does not invite raters, how can the feedback be received without his consent?
December 15th, 2009 at 8:48 am (#)
Hi AJ
Thanks for your questions.
Although it is not best practice, it does happen in some cases that the employer asks for feedback on the employee from a number of raters. If the employee understands the process, and is given the chance to self-rate and to use the 360 as a development tool, it shouldn’t be a problem.
However if the feedback is used negatively and the employee does not know who has given the feedback, the employee may refuse to recognise the validity of any negative feedback as he/she would not know the group from whom the feedback came.
As you say, ideally the participant should request the feedback, but this is not always what happens.
Some of our client organisations ask the employee to give HR a list of people that he/she has worked with, and HR then choose a good balance of raters from that list. It’s quite labour-intensive but works well, and gives the organisation confidence that employees haven’t just chosen their friends to give them feedback.
This is usually done in organisations where 360 is being used for the first time, and employees may not yet fully understand that it’s not just the high scores and the totally positive feedback that’s going to be the most beneficial for them.