360 Feedback Blog

In this great article, the writer explains the physiology behind how we listen and how we interpret what we hear.  It’s certainly hard to stand back and listen objectively, and we can be very selective with what we hear, and what we do about it.

People can made immediate assumptions about what they think you’re telling them, and respond less than positively.

Good listening skills are a critical skill set that successful leaders, managers and influencers all demonstrate frequently or almost  all the time.They’re also one of the key skills that, with a bit of work, can complement and enhance someone who’s already got a broad range of good management or leadership skills.  A good way to become a better listener is to ask your colleagues to tell you each time they catch you not listening for what they’re trying to tell you, or ignoring their messages.  Becoming aware of this habit through feedback can help you to change and improve those critical skills.

 Setting goals and monitoring employees performance is a necessary part of making sure people are judged fairly on their work and that they have clear instructions on what is required of them. However, when we get too entrenched in numbers and figures we can begin to breed a workplace of disgruntled automatons who feel they are either incapable or not trusted enough to use their common sense and best judgement to make decisions. A case in point is described in the Harvard Business Review  where two US soldiers returning from Afghanistan were refused boarding on their flight because they had too many bags, and the airline employees were unable to take the decision to waive the fees and allow them to board. Cases like this are not only detrimental to the reputation of the company, but are also incredibly degrading for the staff who know what the right course of action would be but feel unable to take it for fear of reprisal.  

Whilst it is important to allow employees the structure of metrics to keep them clear on the achievements they need to make, it is also important to be clear on how they go about reaching those goals. As well as targets and performance indicators, employees should be given clear guidance on the behaviours, values and principles they need to adopt along the way, what is acceptable and what is not.  With that in place, employees can be given a degree of autonomy to make their own choices which will keep them happy and engaged and avoid the descent into robotic response.

For more inforamation on performance management and metrics, go to our 360 Degree Feedback, and download our free guides, Performance Management in Talent Centric Organisations, the Pros and Cons of 360 in performance appraisal, and more.

This article describes the effect of bad appraiser skills combined with poor 360 Degree Feedback design.

One of the key messages for using 360 correctly is that statements such as
“You’re not liked in this organisation”are not useful or practical kinds  of feedback! 

Also, although the article talks about 360 Feedback, it appears that the pain described is coming from the appraising manager’s lack of skills in giving feedback,
not the 360 feedback itself, which should be a reflection of key consistent messages
coming from all the raters, not the opinion of just one person.

With all the excitement of the Royal Wedding we’ve been thinking about relationships, and in particular working relationships. 

Successful working relationships are a key to employee engagement and productivity - and the main reason people leave organisations is because they’re unhappy with their boss.  That’s why it’s critical for employees and their managers to understand better how they interact, communicate and solve problems together.  360 Degree Feedback is a great tool for allowing people to review their own behaviours and how they think they relate to their colleagues (through the Self-assessment process), and to get valuable insights into how their colleagues experience working with them.  By using the information from the 360s, both employees and managers can make specific and fast changes in their everyday activities.

360 not just a ‘nice-to-have’.  It’s a critical tool for improving working relationships and increasing productivity. 

We are often asked to brief people in our client organisations about the best way to give feedback in a 360 Degree Feedback exercise.

Here’s a link to a short video that explains the key areas and some hints and tips for giving great 360 feedback.

This is a great article that sets out how effective Executive Coaching can be in developing better leaders. 

The writer mentions 360 Degree Feedback as an important part of the Coaching toolkit.

As well as a tool for obtaining the views of the people around the coachee, 360 Degree Feedback is a very useful way of subsequently measuring that person’s progress through their coaching journey, as hopefully, their changing behaviours will be observed by others and reflected in future 360s.  This is a particularly important part of coaching for Executives, who need to be helped to regularly reflect and focus on their own development and behaviours - their tendency is usually to focus on what other people are doing!

In this article, the writer states that 360 Degree Feedback should never be anonymous.  I disagree!

Whilst, ideally, we should all be mature enough to accept feedback directly from our colleagues - active acceptance is a lovely idea but somewhat unrealistic. 

As a 360 Degree Feedback designer, practitioner and coach, I know that it takes at least a couple of years to build employees’ and managers’ confidence in their organisation’s feedback processes - as well as in the the broader culture of management, accountability, and whether people get help or get pulped when they make a mistake.

I fear the writer is missing the big point of 360 Degree Feedback here: the point of 360 is not to avoid feedback from your colleagues (although I admit that it’s sometimes used like this). 

The point about 360 Degree Feedback is that it collates trends and consistent messages that are coming from many people, not just one, and therefore can provide information that one person’s experience can’t.  While individual comments and scores are useful, we coach people to look at consistent messages from the 360, not outliers. 

Therefore anonymity does not reduce the value of the feedback, and actually encourages people who would not have given feedback to do so.

Continuing on the theme of what makes a Boss great or really bad, this is a post by Robert Sutton at HBR, talking about how self-delusion, heedlessness to subordinates and being insulated from reality can make a Boss really terrible.  He calls it ‘Living in a Fool’s Paradise’. 

I remember working for someone many years ago who would aske us for our opinions and then either dismissed those opinions instantly (’no, we’re not going to do that’), or nodded and then did nothing. 

He ignored feedback on key areas such as customer responses, the changing market and how employees were feeling.   I used to dread talking to him and eventually I dreaded going into work. 

Consequently good employees didn’t hang around long and the business closed down, having lagged behind its competitors both commercially and operationally. 

My best boss, on the other hand, made me feel that my contributions were valuable, listened to me, allowed me to make some mistakes, and most importantly, backed me up when I did make a mistake.  I always knew I was supported.  She wasn’t perfect, but she made a huge difference to my professional confidence.

If you’ve got examples of great and terrible bosses, we’d love to hear about them.

360 Degree Feedback

This is a great list for effective Objective-Setting.

A key part of objective setting is to ensure that people have the right skills to be able to achieve their objectives - 360 Degree Feedback is a great way to do this.

In this poll, reported in the US, 68%  of managers believe that looks have an impact on the way managers rate job perforamance.

If this survey is to be believed, Attractiveness comes only below Experience and Confidence in recruitment situations, and trumps Education and a sense of Humour - apparently known as the ‘Hottie’ effect!  The author advises those of us who are non-Hotties not to despair but to make the best of whatever assets we have…..

On a more serious note though, how can we overcome these biases which appear to be inbuilt in most of us and can make a big difference in how employees’ performance is judged?

The first answer is Awareness: once we’re aware of our biases, our assumptions and things like the Halo and Horns Effect, we can start to adjust our opinions of that person and inject some objectivity into our appraisal of their performance  (for more on Halo/Horns, go to 360 Degree Feedback and download our paper entitled What Not To Do When Giving Great Feedback ).

Second is judging people on what they have actually done, so setting SMART objectives is critical (Specific, Measurable, Action-based, Relevant and Timely).

Third is making sure that your own judgement is not the only one that counts….tools like 360 Degree Feedback are very important in ensuring that a number of different people have input into the appraisal, and that there is consistency in assessing performance, especially in hard to measure areas like management, leadership and team working.