If you are a manager of people or a team leader, how do you know if you are being effective? You will have your views and your manager may have an opinion about your performance, but the people who know best are normally your team members. However, when in a one-to-one meeting, there are not many people who will tell you what they really think of your effectiveness as a manager. The great British reserve coming in to play or fear of repercussions?

This is how the concept of 360-degree feedback has come about. How can you use it? In this issue of Flourish, I am going to share my experience and provide some guidance on how to set one up. I hope you find it useful. If you have any questions about how best to use 360-degree feedback, click here to get in touch.

Best wishes,

Annette

Why Carry Out 360-Degree Feedback?

The use of feedback and appraisals has evolved. In the past, the emphasis was on how someone performed; now feedback is used increasingly to better answer the question ”How can this person's performance be enhanced?” Feedback has moved from focusing on ‘what' has been achieved to include ‘how'. For example a snooker player will receive immediate feedback on what has been achieved, when trying to pot a ball. If an observer comments on the player's stance, arm action or cue control, they will know how to change.

This is 360-degree feedback. The process can help a manager or team leader receive feedback and learn what they need to change on ‘how' they manage and lead people. As a way of revealing how successful a leader or manager is in important work relationships, 360-degree feedback is the link between feedback and performance.

How Can You Design a 360-Degree System to Work for You?

Here are some simple steps for you to carry out:

1. If your organisation doesn't already have a set list of management competences, agree a list of ideal leadership and management behaviours (I recommend involving the staff in writing this list), such as:

• Provide staff with a vision of where we are going
• Motivate people to achieve success
• Empower people to take ownership and responsibility.

Keep this to one page of A4. You can find an example on the Resources page of my website.

2. Turn this list into statements:

• He/she provides staff with a vision of where we are going
• He/she motivates people to achieve success
• He/she empowers people to take ownership and responsibility.

3. Give the list of statements to each member of the team and ask them to score them (1 – 10 or traffic light colour coding). Ask people to write qualitative notes under each statement, with examples.

4. Ask one member of the team to collate the results and feed them back to you on behalf of the team. Individual comments must remain anonymous.

5. Don't forget this is 360 degrees, so ask your manager to score the statements and do it yourself. This should provide you with clear and useful feedback, from which you can plan the development and actions you need to take.

If you are doing this for several departments or your whole organisation, the questionnaire can be completed and collated for each manager by a team member or you can involve a facilitator, such as your HR Manager. I am working with several HR Managers now in setting up similar processes and if they are too busy or want to keep the process completely neutral, they may use an external facilitator.

360 Degrees of Design

West Waddy ADP is a firm of architects and town planners based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Having agreed with staff what makes an effective ‘leader in the business', the Partners decided to use this list to gather feedback from staff of their perceptions of each Partner, on their effectiveness as leaders and managers.

In order to generate the most honest and open responses from staff, the Partners asked me to facilitate the process for them.

West Waddy ADP asked me to design a questionnaire based on the list of ideal leadership and management behaviours. People in the business were asked to rank their boss and I followed this up with some one-to-one interviews, looking for positive examples as well as where people believed each Partner could be more effective. Patterns started to emerge and I was able to compile this into constructive feedback. I fed this back to each Partner in a one-to-one meeting at which we agreed some development points.

The Partners have told me how useful the process has been and they are now repeating the exercise for the next layer of managers.

In addition to this positive result, the really good news was that I was able to get West Waddy ADP some funding for the exercise that covered about half the costs. Funding is available for similar exercises; if you want to know more about possible funding, please contact me.

You can see some of West Waddy ADP's fabulous designs by clicking here.

Special Offers

360 Degree Feedback meeting – to get some help with introducing 360-degree feedback into your organisation. Special offer of £250 + VAT for Flourish readers (normal fee £300 + VAT).

Events

Assertiveness Workshop (for any member of staff, not just managers) on Wednesday 9 July. £225 or £200 if you book before the end of May.

Time Management Workshop on Tuesday 15 July. £225 + VAT or £200 if you book before the end of May.

Bite Size Effective Meetings morning workshop on Wednesday 6 August. £105 or £95 if you book before the end of May.

All these workshops are run in the Oxfordshire area. If there are any other topics you would like covered by a workshop, click here to let me know.