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.

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.

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.

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. 

The level of misuse, and misunderstanding around the use, of 360 Degree Feedback never fails to amaze me.  This article about the GoldmanSachs Appraisal process, describes how Goldmans has been using 360 Degree Feedback. Pretty much everything they did was totally wrong and worst possible practice…including:

•  Using 360 to rank people’s performance in appraisals
• Allowing raters to be chosen on a random basis, so people were chosen who would give only positive feedback
• Glowing self-assessments were taken into account as part of the appraisal (this is implied in the article)

And please ignore the advice of the article writer, which is…..if you want to ‘do well’ in a 360 appraisal, “cultivate lots of people who think you’re great”, and write a great self-appraisal!

To recap, 360 Degree Feedback can only be valid and useful where there is a balance of feedback givers, where the process is clear and fair, and where there is no direct (or sole) connection to pay or reward.   
 

In this article in the Guardian, the writer lists the key areas that, for her, are critical to employee engagement.

1. Consultation - yes! This is critical for engagement. This includes any forum where employees can voice their views honestly and without fear,  including engagement surveys, 360 degree feedback, ideas and innovation groups, and even Ask the Boss forums!

2. I would add Line Manager skills:
To maintain engagement, especially in tough times, line managers must have the skills to manage their teams, give feedback, coach people as they work, delegate effectively, deal with poor
performance, and as much as possible, give people tasks that are going to hold their attention and make a difference.

While it may not always be possible to involve people in
special projects, a great manager,with some enthusiasm and basic managementskills, can make even the most menial task feel like it’s worth doing.