By Daniel Bobinski
I’ve long believed it is impossible to know a situation when you’re in the middle of it. That’s why good leaders surround themselves with smart people. Effective leaders value the insights provided by team members who see things from different perspectives.
Still, most people know egos can be sensitive, hence, they don’t always share the whole truth. In those situations, when someone’s actions or attitudes are causing problems on a team, pointing out those shortcomings can hinder working relationships and the team’s productivity.
A Useful Tool
Perhaps you’ve heard of 360 feedback reports. For those unfamiliar with these tools, a 360-feedback report collects anonymous information about an employee’s performance and tendencies from a variety of perspectives.
Conducting a 360 starts with developing a purposeful set of questions and then deciding who will be asked to answer those questions. Questions can use Likert scales (e.g., rating someone 1-10 on a given skill or tendency) or respondents can provide a short answer. Sometimes both are used.
The main idea is to gather information anonymously because that’s the best way of getting honest, candid responses. Who are the best respondents? Usually supervisors, peers and subordinates, although in some cases customers or clients can also be asked to provide input.
Wisdom Is Needed
As with anything, the saying “garbage in/garbage out” applies. If questions on a 360 are worded poorly, then respondents are likely to provide input that isn’t all that helpful. It’s also important to find a suitable number of questions. Too few and you don’t get enough useful information; too many and respondents will likely tire of giving their input, thus making their feedback rather inert and therefore useless.
Wisdom is also needed when reviewing a person’s results. It’s easy if everything looks great. The reviewer can tell the person to keep doing what they’re doing because it’s obviously working. But care is needed if responses aren’t exactly glowing. How a person reviews the results of a 360 can make or break an employee’s desire to work on blind spots and deliver for the company.
Recommendations
Reviewers should always look for ways to develop growth opportunities. Simply reporting bad feedback to someone is not only demoralizing, it can lead to attempts at retribution. More specifically, those receiving negative feedback might attempt to identify who gave the bad marks so they can get back at them. To prevent this, reviewers should emphasize the need for everyone to be proactive, not reactive. Emphasize that even minor changes can lead to significantly improved relationships.
If an employee receives a lot of negative feedback, some specific suggestions for reviewers include:
Ensure the review is conducted privately and discretely.
Use the sandwich cookie approach. Let the person know his or her 360 indicates there’s room for improvement, but good things were reported, too. Start by referencing some of the good, and after you review the entire report, end the session with encouragement and hope.
Create an emotionally safe environment. Be sure the person being reviewed knows you will help him or her get the support needed to make any suggested improvements.
Ask for feedback. Sometimes a person might make excuses or try to place blame, so acknowledge their perspective as a possibility, but bring it back to exploring why someone might have provided the low marks or made a negative comment.
Throughout the review, brainstorm with the person possible actions for addressing concerns that were raised by others. Re-emphasize that the purpose of the 360 is to identify what’s working well as well as avenues that might be taken for making improvements.
Feedback showing a need for improvements in technical skills will be industry-specific, but when it comes to general management/leadership issues or interpersonal skills, several suggestions tend to be universal.
Consider the following review of an executive whose review was far less than stellar. Let’s call him Jake.
Jake was described as keeping everything too close to the chest, leaving others out of the planning and organizing process and not bothering to communicate corporate strategy to his team.
People said that when something went wrong, Jake was quick to criticize and find someone to blame. Jake also failed to acknowledge individual contributions and hard work.
When it came to his behavior in meetings, Jake was described as coming across arrogant and aloof, as if the company could not survive without his wisdom.
This was definitely a case where the reviewer needed to be careful. As it happened, senior leadership did consider Jake’s contributions vital to team success, but they knew changes were needed.
As one might imagine, Jake considered the feedback on his 360 devastating. But by following the suggestions listed above, the reviewer worked with Jake to arrive at a list of action steps for making improvements.
The company’s HR department would work together with Jake to create specific goals.
Jake agreed to attend specific training sessions focused on active listening, conflict resolution and relationship building.
The company would help Jake identify a coach who would provide guidance one-on-one for improving his interpersonal skills.
Jake agreed to conduct a monthly self-assessment, rating himself in specific areas, thus keeping his expected improvements top-of-mind.
Jake agreed to have another 360-degree feedback in nine months so he and the leadership team could determine whether improvements were being made.
As I mentioned at the top of this column, we need different perspectives if we’re to know what’s really going on. Jake had scored himself very well on each question in his 360, meaning he was totally blind about how he was coming across. But with a well-thought-out review and some suggestions from his reviewer, Jake is now on a path of improvement. And the positive ripple-effects of those improvements will be felt by many. •
Daniel Bobinski, who has a doctorate in theology, is a best-selling author and a popular speaker at conferences and retreats. For more than 30 years he’s been working with teams and individuals (1:1 coaching) to help them achieve excellence. He was also teaching Emotional Intelligence since before it was a thing. Reach him by email at DanielBobinski@protonmail.com or 208-375-7606.
