I use a lot of 360° feedback assessments with my executive clients to help bring focus to the coaching experience. Clearly, this form of feedback is one of the most insightful, developmental and powerful means to quickly identify my clients’ strengths to build upon and skills for further development. When a 360° assessment is not used properly, it can become destructive (at worst) and a total waste of time and resources (at best).
Too frequently companies use 360°’s inappropriately. They use it as a tool for compensation reviews, or they provide the final report with no interpretation for the recipient. The executive is left in the dark to discover their strengths and address their weaknesses. Frequently, animosity or apathy develops when the executive sees how harshly they are judged. Or just the opposite, the executive’s raters gave him higher scores than his performance merited…as is often the case when a 360° is used with salary reviews.
Good 360° assessments can be expensive. I like the Profiles CheckPoint™ 360° as it is logically organized, highly reliable, well validated and addresses specific behaviors. That said, there are plenty of alternatives to consider. So, how do you get the most return on your investment?
Use a 360° only as a means to develop the executive further…not for salary reviews or a disciplinary too. The reliability of the raters’ feedback will skyrocket when everyone understands how you want to identify the executive’s strengths and develop their skills further.
Choose the raters carefully…don’t leave it entirely to the candidate receiving the feedback. Yes, allow the executive being rated to take the first pass at identifying peers and direct reports. Then review that list to make sure it is not heavily weighted to raters who might have an upward or downward bias in their assessment of the client. Choose people who have worked with the executive frequently, and have observed their behaviors, and are objective!
Have at least 5 or 6 raters in the “peer” and “direct reports” grouping… to achieve the most reliable outcome from the assessment. This will assure a high degree of confidentiality necessary for raters to offer their most accurate insights into the executive being reviewed. Using too few raters in these two critical groups might affect accuracy as well; shoot for more “inter-relater” reliability with more raters rather than too few.
Conduct the assessment and establish deadlines…and hold everyone accountable for participating. Round up and follow up those procrastinators as high response rates result in a better assessment.
After the assessment is complete and the results are ready, then what?
Use an independent party to go over the assessment with the executive…like someone in human resources or someone external to the organization. Don’t use the boss, at least initially, or anyone who rated the candidate. From my experience, company employees who rated the executive lack objectivity and can be dismissive of the other raters’ opinions. I often find I can add real value with my objectivity and my only purpose is to make the reviewed executive even more successful.
If the executive receiving the results is in a position of power, then use someone who is also in a position of power to go over the assessment…or use someone external to the company. Please don’t send in the staff level corporate trainer to go over the 360° of a senior vice-president. The crucial tough discussions aren’t likely to occur or if they happen, they might fall upon the executive’s deaf ears. Just like in coaching, the higher up an executive is in the organizational structure, the better the outcome will be by employing an expert from outside the organization to facilitate the process.
Coach the executive’s boss to follow though…once the initial assessment results have been communicated. The boss should then develop individualized goals with the executive which need to become a part of the continuous performance dialogue. Frequently when I am the facilitator of the process, I develop an Individual Coaching Plan with the executive being reviewed. Upon completion of the Plan, I go over the 360° assessment with the boss. Then the final step is to have all three of us sit down and discuss the Individual Coaching Plan. I encourage the boss to set up regular intervals to formally discuss the executive’s progress and how to measure success. If the executive being reviewed is the CEO, you must get someone from outside the organization to handle this step of providing accountability for the CEO.
The 360° assessment should be used as a way to improve the skills of a leader. Done correctly, the data gathered is crucial to bringing focus to the development of the executive being reviewed. Just as important is how the results are communicated to the employee and the development plan that should be crafted for each recipient. If both phases are not done well, you risk losing the real power that comes from the 360°assessment.