360 Feedback Blog

In this article from US Website Above the Law, the writer makes the case for using 360 Degree Feedback in legal firms.

He lists the common concerns in law firms and the reasons why they might be reluctant to use 360 Degree Feedback, such as concerns about anonymity, and how a partner might react negatively to less than glowing feedback.

We have designed and delivered 360 Degree Feedback in a number of leading law firms here in the UK, and our clients can testify to the benefits of 360 Degree Feedback - even for partners!

The keys to success in using 360 in legal firms are:

• Buy-in from the partners: this means gaining real commitment to the 360 by demonstrating that it is a useful tool for them, not just another HR tick-box exercise
• Incoporate their 360 feedback into their development plans, which in turn feed into the partner’s performance appraisal.  This makes a clear connection with something that is critical for them
• Managing Partner sponsorship: we have found that unless the MP is i) willing to provide some feedback to the partners and ii) visibly interested in the outcomes, partners will tend to be lukewarm about the whole thing
• Providing partners or associates with some specific coaching that relates to their 360 Degree Feedback.  Initially the coaching discussion covers the feedback and the interpretation of the key messages that it’s delivering.
  A further coaching discussion two or three weeks down the line helps the partner or associate to be able to have assimilated the messages and then incorporated these into their action and/or development plan.

In our experience, careful design and planning can make 360 Degree Feedbackjust as valuable in a legal environment as in a corporate one.

For more information, visit Empower Legal 360.

This article sets out the benefits of coaching for executives and managers.

Coaching is a critical learning experience because it incorporates a large element of self-evaluation and reflection.

Many executives and managers are generally too busy and under pressure to take the time out themselves to reflect on their performance,strengths and areas they need to change.

360 Degree Feedback is a highly complementary tool to coaching, as it adds the observations and perceptions of the individual’s colleagues to the process of reflection and discussion with the coach.

Many of our client organisations use 360 Degree Feedback both to inform coaching discussions, and also, as described here, to evaluate the results of coaching by running 360 before and after the coaching sessions.

There’s a new film out that looks great - Horrible Bosses - where one boss in particular seems to thoroughly enjoy tormenting his employees!

The writer of the article explains how, when he’s running a training course for managers, he sometimes has to …”tell them frankly how they come across to their employees. It can be a real turning point: I’ve seen aggressive bosses, confronted by this information, decide to change their ways completely”.

360 Degree Feedback can be a critical tool for helping managers who are unaware of how their behaviour is seen by their employees and their colleagues.  360 Degree Feedback gives them an opportunity to get some honest feedback, and to act on that feedback and make some changes in what they do. 

The learning from 360 Degree Feedback can be substantially increased by providing a coach or mentor to a manager, who can help him/her understand the feedback and how they can use it to improve.

This article in Personnel Today reports the results of a recent survey showing how poor management skills can affect employee morale and have a direct effect on peformance.

It’s critical to have a system in place to understand the skills gaps in your manager group.  Using 360 Degree Feedback and evaluation, and a robust system for collating individual and group data, you can measure how effective managers are in:

• Helping people to make decisions
• Dealing reasonably with people when they make a mistake, and helping them to learn from a mistake
• Offering training and support to people to help them do a better job

I’ve been following the current Apprentice series on BBC TV, and last night’s episode was a corker - here’s the Guardian blog, which gives you the sequence of events plus some witty commentary.  Of particular interest to me was how Jim, who escaped being fired, suddenly plummeted in popularity with the candidates and Lord Sugar. I was intrigued as to how someone who had been universally popular with the team and with Lord Sugar, could fall so quickly from grace.  It has clearly been a case of Halo Effect.

The Halo Effect happens when someone does one or more high-visibility, successful actions or tasks.  They may be very specific, in Jim’s case, it was a very effective negotiation a number of weeks back. This one action or task creates an impression of high performance in all areas, which is also reinforced by group concensus, hence a ‘Halo’.   

In Jim’s case, because of the negotiation, he gained a reputation as a ’strong candidate’, and one of the fired candidates, Vincent, had been only too happy to seek Jim’s opinion and advice throughout.   In the end, Jim proved to be vindictive, unwilling to take responsibility and ineffective in the task, and both the remaining candidates and Lord S were visibly shocked at this ‘change’ in their perception of Jim.

The Halo Effect can be a serious problem for you if you have to assess or grade someone’s performance, or if you are asked give 360 Degree Feedback, or particularly if you are assessing ‘potential’ for talent and leadership pools. 

It’s difficult to avoid the Halo Effect - after all, our brains are designed to create short cuts to speed up decision making - and its sister, the Horns Effect.  But just being aware of the biases in our thinking, and also how easy it is to be swayed by ‘group think’, helps in balancing our understanding of someone’s strengths and weaknesses.

I agree completely with this article- no-one can be great at everything, and a great leader brings out the best in other people. A really great people leader also asks for
feedback and listens to that feedback when it’s given.  This is a link to an article about the CEO of HCL Technologies, who publishes his 360 Degree Feedback
on the company intranet for everyone to see.

In this article from Personnel Today, a recent survey shows that confidence in senior management has hit an all time low, as well as job satisfaction and, by default, engagement.

Senior managers need now, more than ever, to be able to engage with their teams and their organisations in a meaningful and effective way.

How effectively are your senior managers engaging with people?  As individuals and as teams, how good are they at keeping people informed, engaged and motivated? Or is it possible they are demotivating people through being unaware of some of their daily behaviours in the workplace?

A customised 360 Degree Feedback will provide you with the information you need to understand what’s happening with your senior teams, and how you can help them improve specific skills and behaviours.

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.

In this article the writer talks about recent research into team working, and suggests that teams need to be more emotionally intelligent if they want to improve their performance.

Whilst I agree with this, I would also add that helping the team to understand its own strengths and weaknesses, getting those out into the open, and regularly reviewing team interactions, is critical.

The team leader needs to facilitate the analysis (we provide online team assessment and 360 Degree Feedback tools to do this), the discussions and the follow up.

As with individual performance, improving team performance has to start with an understanding and awareness of where we are right now.

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.