360 Feedback Blog

Click here to read the Times article on Imposter Syndrome and my response on UK Training Zone.

‘What organisations increasingly need is a cost-effective way of developing the leadership skills of large numbers of managers in a way which moulds them into the type of manager best suited to the organisations’ needs – and preferably, without taking them away from their day jobs – ideally through, an approach that allows them to dip in and out when time and opportunity permits’.  View this article on localgov.co.uk

I would add that effective learning should be all about learning through the medium of the individual’s day-job. By focusing on 360 Degree Feedback and coaching, as in this great example, individuals can reflect on how they do their job, what they need to change to improve, and then do it, in the context of their workplace and their colleagues.  The regular 360 Degree Feedback and coaching is so important because it’s easy for busy managers to forget about what they are learning, and their learning targets - 360 feedback and regular coaching keeps them focused. 

On the point of ensuring that the organisation gets the skills improvement it needs (as well as individuals improving personally), it’s critical that the 360 Degree Feedback is aligned to the organisation’s learning objectives, which in turn must reflect the skills and behaviours it requires in its people in order to meet its business objectives. 

To many employees, managers and business owners, performance and 360 appraisals are a bureaucratic and time-consuming chore.  As people professionals we often find ourselves having to argue the case for Appraisal and its benefits.   An appraisal process of some kind is essential where you have people whose performance is going to be assessed for any reason – even in the smallest company, a consistent, clear appraisal is necessary.  This is because:

1. People need a clear understanding of their role, what they are expected to do as their key tasks (i.e. their goals), and the scope of their responsibilities

2. People then need to understand clearly how their performance is going to be assessed - how their training, pay and promotion is going to be affected by their performance

3. A consistent, transparent appraisal process ensures that as far as possible, people are being assessed on a consistent basis, on the things that they have agreed to be assessed on, and have a fair chance to put their case forward in a two-way discussion with their employing organisation.

 

There is in addition a strong business case for getting a good, customised appraisal in place.  

 

1. Although time needs to be spent in running the appraisal process, this will be less than the chaos of not having any guidance in place, where managers judge their people entirely on their personal preferences and assumptions.  A fair appraisal system makes people feel that they are being treated fairly and consistently – a key indicator of employee engagement, which is critical to good employee performance

2. Having a good appraisal system in place ensures the business has an audit of the ongoing interactions with employees around performance problems, and can be an important factor in the employer’s favour if any cases are ever brought against the employer for unfair dismissal etc.

3. Appraisal need not be a long painful process: keeping your appraisal process simple, straightforward and directly linked to the company’s business objectives will ensure that people use it and that managers rate it.

 For more information on the key steps in creating a customised Appraisal for your organisation, contact us at info@tracksurveys.co.uk or on 020 7206 7279.    

Posted on Training Zone today 28 September 2009.

This article in today’s Guardian appears to show evidence that people work better in teams.

However, in an article in Harvard Business Review called ‘Why Teams Don’t Work, the authors debunk the myth that teams are the answer to every performance issue, and that teams always perform better than individuals working on their own.  They question the whole idea of ‘team dynamic’ as an absolute, consistently positive force.

Common misconceptions about teams include:

Teams that work harmoniously together are better and more productive than teams that don’t: there is more evidence that teams who are more productive, and are recognised as a team for it,  get on better together because of their good performance, not the other way around.

Teams work better because the work is shared out, and the bigger the team, the more effective: unfortunately this is cancelled out by the difficulty of keeping the right people informed as the team gets bigger, so big teams are not necessarily a good idea.

Teams should be renewed constantly to encourage creativity: again, this is not proven by evidence. In fact the more productive teams were those who had been together for a number of years and understood each other deeply.  Many teams are never given enough time to settle in and learn to work together.

In a research paper called ‘The Romance of Teams’, (Allen and Hecht, 2004), the authors conclude that the reasons people like working in teams are mainly because of the social interaction, because

1. team members feel good being part of a successful team
2. people also feel somewhat ’sheltered’ in a team, and
3. they can blame someone else on the team if something goes wrong!

To ask a question or share ideas about team performance and how you can measure it, go to
http://tracksurveys.co.uk/AskTrack.aspx

 For more information, articles and resources on teams and team performance measurement, contact me on jo.ayoubi@tracksurveys.co.uk
or go to:
http://www.tracksurveys.co.uk/TeamWorks.aspx

In this blog, you can find my thoughts on an article by a leading coach on how 360 Degree Feedback should be made more effective.

In this interview with the CEO of a high tech corporation in the states, she makes a number of interesting observations about her development as a leader.  In summary, the key messages are:

- She has learned not to try to do everything herself
- She listened to feedback and learned to modify the way she dealt with certain issues
- She realised from her 360 reviews that sometimes you don’t realise the messages you’re giving to people in the organisation and that those messages might not be what you intended.
-Sometimes strengths can be overdone and become weaknesses, so she has learned to be aware of that and act accordingly.

Follow the discussion here and on UK Training Zone.

In this great blog, Deus Ex Macchiato tells us that we’re wasting our time appraising, feeding back or even trying to work out who does a great job in an organisation.   Here’s my response:

Loved your blog about HRbots and was intrigued that you assumed Catbert (my favourite Dilbert character) was female…I always thought Catbert was a boy…!

But moving on to your specific points:

1. Appraisals and 360 Degree Feedback: these are systems that provide some consistency over how people’s performance and activities are measured and rated .  The results of their work need to be checked from time to time, as does their capability of working with others, customers, etc. 

And without some kind of consistency (and feedback from multiple sources), how can you, indeed, overcome individual managers’ prejudices…?

A good appraisal or 360 Degree Feedback should be very clearly linked to the individual’s job performance…

2. I disagree entirely with your second point: people tend to behave and respond in fairly consistent ways over time.   I have never seen someone who sits around suddenly become a start performer - it just doesn’t happen.  They sit around because of a combination of personality, motivation and skills.  You can’t change the first two, only the last one, and only if you know what skills are required…thus measurement is important.

3. I tend to agree with your point about ’star’ performers. Have to say though, aside from the stars, a company still needs everyone else performing at their best. Not sure average is something we should be aiming for…!

And finally, if not meritocracy, then what?

Thanks for giving me something to get my thinking going on a Friday afternoon!

Jo
jo.ayoubi@tracksurveys.co.uk
www.tracksurveys.co.uk

On my Training Zone blog I talk about the reasons why 360 Degree Feedback is an ideal tool to support feedback, irrespective of individual styles or preferences.

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