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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

This article describes a Face to Face 360 Degree Feedback process that she experienced with her best ever boss.

Face to face feedback like this can be a very effective tool for managers and teams
to use both at appraisal time and  regularly throughout the year.

Of course, the managers that need the feedback the most are the ones that are least likely to volunteer for it!

So while it’s good to give managers a choice, if you really want to give managers an
awareness of their blind-spots (and their strengths too), and you want to build a consistent level of skills in the manager group, the feedback needs to:

1. Be based on the same questions for each manager and each person giving the feedback
2. Have an element of anonymity so that the feedback from those reluctant to give face-to-face feedback, is also recorded.
3. Be reportable in a format that is easy to read and understand

 After all, even smart people need feedback!

This article by Scott Berkun talks about how to manage smart people.

Go to the UK Training Zone 360 Degree Feedback Discussion group for more on this.

360 Degree 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 author makes the point that 360 Degree Feedback is a good starting point for new managers, but that workplace learning is the best way for them to acquire their new skills.

I would also add that 360 Degree Feedback is a great tool for re-measuring how managers are progressing in those areas that are, by their nature, difficult to measure; managing people, delegating, influencing and leading - all those things that most people were never taught before they became a manager!