360 Feedback Blog

In this article in Training Zone the author discusses the way technology is changing the way individuals learn, develop and manage their careers.

Individual learning and development does indeed translate into ubiquitous performance support, and e-learning and other online forms of learning are brilliant for doing this.

Whilst the individual is certainly responsible for building their personal brand and their skill set, organisations that employ individuals need (now more than ever) to link the performance support they provide to the skills and performance that the organisation needs to succeed.

For the organisation to provide the right performance support, it needs to:

1. Identify the critical skills the organisation needs in order to achieve its strategic goals
2. Identify who the key people are who are going to deliver those goals - These are not necessarily the top
teams - a study by a global courier company found that the key people for them were their delivery drivers
3. Measure the strengths of those critical skills in the key people or group
4. Concentrate on filling the critical skills or competence gaps in the key groups (using both development activities and on the job experience)
5. Consistently and regularly measure the results and refine the training and refine development activities based on those results.

For more information on online tools and support for talent management, visit
www.tracksurveys.co.uk

This article has some compelling reasons why we need to know our weaknesses and why we need to get feedback from people around us.

Our brains are designed to overlook our own flaws and weaknesses and to feel more confident about our skills than is realistic (how many people do you know who think they’re a much better driver than average?…I know an awful lot of them, inculding myself!).   This being the case, feedback from others on specific areas and behaviours is essential if we are going to improve, whether in work or elsewhere. 

 So for organisations, making sure that people get structured, focused 360 Degree Feedback is even more important, because the success and maybe even the survival of the organisation depends on people performing at their best, and knowing where they need to improve.

If you’ve been following The Apprentice, as we have been here at Track, you’ll remember the interview episode (Episode 11).  I was struck by how often the candidates talked about the feedback they had received throughout the series, how they felt, and what they were going to do about it. 

• You’ve got to be tough-skinned and brave to hear that…
• Some people have said that I rub people up the wrong way…
  I find that extraordinary because I never thought that I did!
• I’ve learned how my personality and the way I communicate…
  has an impact on other people
• It’s a painful experience for someone to hold up a
  ‘professional mirror’ to you and say ‘this is what I see’
  and it’s something you see differently,  but it’s actually
  one of the most liberating things you can do… because I’ve
  got the opportunity to transform that..
• The hardest part about today to was to really see (myself)
  through someone else’s eyes…

A recent article in Harvard Business Review (July-August 2000/Nohria, Groysberg and Lee) on Employee Motivation identifies 4 basic emotional drives that motivate human beings. 

Here’s a summary of that article:

The key drives that motivate people are:

The drive to acquire: this includes status and reputation, as well as pay and benefits
The drive to bond: i.e. people derive satisfaction and motivation from forming relationships with other
The drive to comprehend, that is, to make sense of what’s happening around them and to learn
The drive to defend; this is about protecting ourselves and people or things we value against external threat

The authors’ research shows that that organisations which were able to meet one of the four drives showed an increase in employee motivation of 5%, but those that enhanced performance on all four drives effectively showed an increase of 21% in motivation (and by implication, engagement and therefore performance).

So what kinds of specific actions can organisations take to help employees fulfil those key emotional needs? Here are some examples from the article:

Acquire = rewards = clear differentiation between good, average and poor performance 
Bond = culture = building a culture that really promotes teamwork and openness
Comprehend = job design = designing job roles that are clear and meaningful
Defend = performance management and work allocation practices = making processes more transparent so people feel they are being treated fairly

How can we do more with our current skillsets and tools to increase motivation as described in this model?

Do you have any ideas to share about how we could increase motivation using this model?

How do you think this model will be affected by the current climate of uncertainty and change in the workplace?  

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