I've been re-reading a great book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith. It's a thoughtful, practical and well-written guide that individuals, as well as learning and development and HR professionals, will find incredibly helpful. In this article, which also appears in the book, Marshall very clearly sets out why getting feedback from others is so important. As he puts it "If we can stop, listen, and think about what others are seeing in us, we have a great opportunity".
Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, said he was not involved in the decision-making process that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Is the CEO of any organisation every justified in saying that he or she was too removed from the day-to-day decision making process to bear responsiblity for the eventual outcome of those decisions?
Here's my Training Zone blog on this- please feel free to add your comments.
On the subject of performance review and appraisal, giving regular feedback to your team, colleagues and boss is a great, easy way of improving everyone's performance and building good work relationships. Here's a link through to how giving rapid feedback can really help performance.
Here's a quick thought from my UK Training Zone 360 Degree Feedback group discussion on the dreaded 'Can I give you some feedback' question....
At this time of the year, lots of organisations are looking at evaluating their people's performance over the past 6-12 months. This article, Fixing Performance Evaluations, clearly sets out the difficulties of manager-only performance evaluation, and explains how 360 Degree Feedback can be a powerful tool for ensuring more accurate and objective performance ratings.
The Problem with 360 Feedback
The article above presents a good challenge to using 360 Degree Feedback as a means of communication in an organisation. I would respond as follows:
- Face-to-face communication, with immediate and relevant feedback is of course the best way to manage individuals and teams. 360 Degree Feedback should never be used as a substitute for this, or as a way of avoiding difficult conversations.
- 360 Degree Feedback is part of a wider set of activities that helps people to understand their own skills and how they can grow as managers or leaders in their organisation. That's why generic 360s are less useful that those that are customised and aligned with the organisation's goals.
- Even in organisations with good face-to-face feedback, we find that individuals who recieve 360 Degree feedback are often surprised at the perceptions of others about them, and that this can lead to an increased awareness of their day to day behaviours and their impact on other people.
- And in an ideal world, of course I should tell my boss when I'm not happy that she chews me out in front of the rest of the team...and she should accept that feedback directly from me and without any reprecussions, but we know that's not always the case. And maybe my boss needs to understand that a number of other people might feel that way? 360 is a great way of getting that message across.
Used correctly and in the right situations, 360 Degree Feedback is a very powerful tool for development; please don't throw the 360 Degree Feedback baby out with the bathwater!
"You learn by doing and experience, and by developing an awareness and understanding. It's simple but not easy".
In recent years I think we have devalued the hands on experience of people who have risen through the ranks and know their organsations intimately, and overvalued the charismatic outsider who comes in and changes everything. In my experience the best leaders have a strong awareness of their own strengths and limitations, and so are able to listen to others and make better-judged decisions. This is my take on the humility of leaders that John Adair mentions in this article.
Feedback and in particular, 360 Degree Feedback, is a powerful tool that allows leaders to obtain the views and perceptions of the people who work with them, in a structured way, and confidentially. By asking questions about specific behaviours and actions that their colleagues at all levels can observe, leaders can start to understand how they come across to others, what they do that motivates and empowers, and what they do that creates demotivation or confusion.
Here's an article in the New York Times, giving a great quick overview of 360 Degree Feedback for Bosses.
Key benefits are:
1. Bosses get to hear some really useful stuff that they won't get face to face
2. Employees like it
3. Bosses need to do something about the feedback they get
Tim Wright's article Why Feedback Matters to Employee Engagement talks about how successful feedback increases communication in the organisation and helps employees to feel involved.
I would agree, and add that, for Feedback to be really effective:
- The content needs to be right i.e. what are we asking and what exactly is the feedback telling us
- The way it's positioned is cricital, i.e. it's not just another thing that HR want us to do, but something that is going to be takent notice of will make change happen
The bigger message from individual or group feedback is that you are valued as an employee and that the organisation cares about talking to you and listening to you.
Of course, don't do what some people (and organisations) do and scupper that great message by asking for feedback and then
1. Disagreeing with it ("yes, but there's an reason why I/we do it like that..")
2. Listening but not hearing ("thanks for the feedback", then nothing apparently changes)
3. Using the feedback as a stick to beat people up with, or
4. Only hearing and acting on the negative stuff - positive feedback is just as important..we can always do more of the good stuff!
The Struggling Manager says: 'How do you succeed with 360 degree reviews? Easy. Never do them'.....Here's my response...
Hi Stuggling Manager
Great article. I love it so much that I've tagged it and linked to it from my blog. It's great (and I'm not being ironic) because it says everything that people say who don't like 360 Degree Feedback, or who've had a bad experience with 360, or whose organisation does 360 very badly. All of which are valid points of view.
Can I ask you a couple of questions though...?
- Who told you that 360 is a scientific survey? Whoever they were, they lied! As a 360 practitioner I can tell you that 360 is a subjective, observational exercise, not a scientific measurement or a personality test.The idea is that you get some observations, on the same behaviours, from a number of different people. If you start hearing the same message from a number of different people, it might be worth taking some notice...
- As you say, asking someone 'what kind of a manager' John is, is completely unhelpful. Of course you're going to get unfocused generalisations and opinions based on people's theories about personality. That's why good 360 doesn't ask you those kinds of questions.
- "Criticism never is useful"..Really?! Have you never heard something about yourself from a friend or family member that made you do something different?
- How much politicking have you seen around 360? OK, there could be some, but do people really have the time to manipulate feedback to such an extent as to make a difference? In my experience this is rare- of course if you use 360 to determine salaries and promotions that might be the case, but you really shouldn't use it to do that - very dangerous.
- I so agree with you about jargon, 'thinking out of the box' and the rest of it. That's why 360 questions have to be worded clearly, focus on actual, observable behaviours, and not woolly or managment-speak. As well as structured questions, a good 360 will also have a section that allows you to give some clear behavioural feedback, just like your great examples. We use, for example, things you would like your colleague to start, stop and continue doing.
- "360 degree reviews exist only because effective management is not there to fill the void". What kind of managers have you had, Struggling Manager? And yes, managers should be giving you feedback, but what about all the other people you work with? Don't you think that they might be able to give you some helpful insights too, that they might prefer not to tell you face to face (e.g. tells jokes when others are starting to appear frustrated)?
You see I think when you say 360 feedback, you really mean bad 360 feedback. Am I right? Hope to hear from you!
Very best regards
Jo