What is 360 degree feedback?
In short, the participant is surrounded by feedback. 360 degree feedback allows the participant to receive feedback from people above, below, and at the same functional or hierarchical level. Participants assess themselves as well.
What are some effective ways to introduce 360 feedback system?
Depending on your organization’s experience with something new, it makes sense to evaluate 360 degree feedback with several people first. You may first want to evaluate 360 degree feedback with a receptive group of 10-50 people.
What are some ineffective ways to introduce 360 degree performance evaluation?
One of the most ineffective ways people introduce a 360 degree feedback process is to select a single person to evaluate it (versus say a group of 10 to 50 participants). A second ineffective method is to select people who are on disciplinary action, are about to be fired, or are among the least productive performers in the organization.
Who provides the feedback?
Select people (raters) who know the participant well. Raters should be people who interact with the participant on a frequent basis and whose feedback is wanted and valued by the participant.
Can the data predict anything?
While we prefer not to get involved in the prediction business, the short answer is Yes. However, many participants feel that their feedback is a reflection not of their behavior, but of those with whom they have to report to or work with. Possibly. Our research suggests that when the survey is written in observable, behavioral language the feedback clearly reflects the behaviors of that participant. Further, when a participant moves to another location or inherits an entirely new boss, staff, and/or peer group and chooses not to modify his or her behavior based on the feedback results, then there is a high probability that those same areas that were previously seen as developmental needs will continue to be seen as weaknesses by this new population
What are some major concerns about using 360 assessment?
One of the concerns is the same as with any assessment or performance evaluation system. There are people who do not want to evaluate others, nor be evaluated. There are people who really prefer their own interpretation of their own effectiveness. There is a certain personal comfort with not knowing (or caring) what one’s personal weaknesses are.
Been there, done that is cited as another concern. Part of the problem stems from the fact that those responsible for implementation want to get it over with quickly and assess the entire population at one time. Rather than see the process as ongoing, it is positioned as basically a one-time event that everyone will participate in, kicking and screaming or not. Then there is utter surprise and dismay when the rate of return is not as high as it could be, that the data are not as revealing as it could have been, that people are criticizing the instrument, the process, the lack of time to respond, the lack of positioning, and on and on.
A third concern is that participants are not always told, upfront, what the feedback will be used for and who else will see their data, when. This can cause mistrust in the process
Olympic Scoring — Why?
This concept eliminates the highest and lowest scores for each item on the survey. As a result, Olympic scoring provides a “better score” for the participant when these high-low scores are dropped. Is this your goal?
Like its Olympic judging namesake, proponents of this type of scoring often assume that people will provide high scores to those they like, low scores to those they don’t. When applied to 360 degree feedback, it denies people from seeing all of the responses.
We prefer to treat the participant as an adult. We show all the data. We also display the response distributions for each item and let the participant understand that not everyone thinks the same. Not everyone has the same expectations of everyone else in that group. We focus on descriptive behavior, not scores.
Rather than focus on a score, focus on what behaviors are in need of improvement, according to the majority of the respondents, or according to a particular rater group. When you focus on the score, there is a tendency to lose sight of what issues need to be built upon, which to change and improve upon
Why so some people resist changing when they receive their 360 feedback?
There are a lot of different reasons. For some people, if they learn that something has to change about how they do things, they tend to see such change as a criticism of what they have been doing all these years. They become defensive and protective of their past and existing behavior and processes. As a result, change is seen as not needed. Things continue as before.
How long should a survey be?
Contrary to popular belief, there is no magical length for a feedback survey. Yes, the shorter the better, especially if people are in a hurry or do not want to be bothered by an overly long set of questions.
A more professional approach is to first identify the themes or competencies you want to measure. Next, we suggest you include at least five questions (behaviors and practices) for each theme or skill competency you want to measure. So, for example, if one of your skill competencies is Delegation, we recommend at least five items for measuring it, and so on for the other competencies in your survey. If you use this as a guideline, then you can easily dictate the length of the survey that is right for your target population.
360 Feedback Assessment Resources:
| Call us toll free and one of our experienced 360 assessment specialists will be glad to assist you. 800-821-2487 Toll Free or 770-860-9464 |
