One of the best ways to identify where an individual needs intervention or remedial coaching or training to help them become a better leader, manager or team member, is through the application of a 360-degree assessment.
Many of us have a fairly poor ability to understand how others perceive us or accurately assess our strengths and weaknesses. 360-degree tests are an excellent and effective way to ‘fix’ problem employees who are sometimes blithely unaware of how their behaviours impede the performance of those around them. 360-tests ‘hold up a mirror’ to help people see exactly how their work behaviours and skills (or lack thereof) are viewed by those with whom they interact.
360-degree tests (also known as multi-source feedback assessments), enable one to gather feedback regarding an individual’s performance from various sources, including their supervisors, peers, direct reports, and sometimes even customers or vendors. They can provide a holistic view of an individual’s strengths and weaknesses and produce precisely targeted developmental road maps.
They are one of the most effective ways to give individuals, leaders, and teams the specific real-world feedback necessary to help foster interpersonal skills, individual growth, resolve conflicts, and provide opportunities for intervention and individualized coaching support for those who are struggling to perform, lead, or manage.
At Creative Organizational Design we’ve used 360s with clients for years, and to great success. One memorable example involved a client who had an employee forced upon them by the Head Office. He was responsible for their ISO 9002 compliance process. He was brusque, abrasive, rude, short tempered, difficult to get along with, and was driving everyone around him crazy. We administered a 360 called the MEPS (Management Effectiveness Profile System) to a group of individuals, including him.
Unsurprisingly, his results were dire. He had scored himself high across all scales. Those who rated on the same competencies gave him extremely low scores. Everyone involved had anticipated this (but for him). When it came time to do the debriefing, he entered the room without a hello or good morning, threw the report on the desk, announced that this was all nonsense, that these people didn’t understand his job, and that he didn’t have time for any of this ****. He then walked out and slammed the door.
This was the first time we’d met him, and the guy positively overflowed with ‘attitude’. We now understood what our client had been enduring!
The MEPS was instrumental in identifying the specific problems at play, and it enabled our client to require that the problem employee make the necessary changes or face dismissal. It all worked out in the end, but not before he was sent for 6 weeks of individual counselling, and with a mandate from the President that he either clean up his act or never return. He came back a changed man with a better attitude. Had it not been for a 360-degree test it’s unlikely that our client would have been able to resolve things.
You don’t need to wait until you have a difficult employee before taking advantage of the power of a 360 though. They can be used with dysfunctional teams who struggle to perform, and with leaders who are struggling to coach and manage their teams effectively. 360s can also be a part of the performance review process, highlight where one’s developmental needs exist, and used to help guide individuals along the path to remediation.
Some of the benefits of 360-degree tests include:
- Anonymity: allowing raters to tell the truth without fear of being negatively affected by doing so.
- Motivation: enabling participants to see and then bridge the gap between how they see themselves vs how they’re perceived by others.
- Building Morale and Trust: by helping participants to improve communication and overall performance.
- Growth Opportunities: by helping participants to learn how to handle feedback and focus on personal and professional growth opportunities.
- Identifying Training Needs: enabling participants to glean a better understanding of individual, departmental, and organizational skill competencies.
- A Broad Range of Feedback: from peers, subordinates, superiors, and/or clients, which make the results more accurate and meaningful, and making it more likely that those being assessed will take it to heart.
- Improving Team Performance: by enabling in-depth understanding of the ‘disconnects’ and enabling team members to become better collaborators and more effective.
- Give A Voice To Raters: who often have no opportunity to give feedback to their bosses or workmates (without fear of reprisal).
- Increased Self-Awareness: that motivate people to make changes and address development needs, learn new skills, and strengthen existing competencies.
Here’s an example of what 360-degree assessment questions often look like:
There are, of course, criticisms of 360-degree instruments as well, however, most of them are fairly minor or are easily overcome by either due diligence or a bit of pre-planning. Criticisms of 360s include:
- Pitting Employees Against One Another: A New York Times articlehighlighted how 360-degree feedback can sometimes lead to hurtful and unproductive personal comments, such as “stop using your looks and personality to get things done” and “I never really liked you.” The article also notes that employees being considered for promotion might receive biased and damaging feedback driven by others’ agendas.
- In reality, however, most 360-degree tools don’t allow for verbatim commentary – for exactly these reasons – and instead focus on specific competencies for which only numeric scores are possible.
- It’s Time Consuming: According to some, it takes 1 to 3 weeks to complete the assessment, 1 to 3 weeks to select raters, and debriefing and development plans require additional weeks. The entire process can require 6 to 12 weeks; supposedly.
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- We, however, have completed 360s for clients within just days. Debriefings certainly require some time investment, as does creating development plans (but most well-designed 360s have this component built-in). In our experience, 360s that drag on for ages are almost exclusively due to 1 or 2 participants who fail to do as requested and/or who need many reminders before submitting their ratings. Those are mostly time management and compliance issues; not failings of the assessment itself.
- Confidentiality: Due to anonymity, employees may be unable to respond to feedback that they perceive as unfair or unhelpful. There is also no opportunity to seek further clarification or additional comments, leaving little to no room for making significant improvements based on the feedback received.
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- Unfortunately, this criticism is predicated on the presumption that a 360 is supposed to be a ‘conversation’. It isn’t. It’s a snapshot of ‘now’ which is designed to show another person where they can improve. It’s not a back and forth amongst colleagues. Furthermore, the person being rated is almost inevitably responsible for choosing the individuals who’ll be rating them. Thus, if you select someone who you think is going to try to undermine you by providing false or intentionally misleading feedback, that is not a failing that can be laid at the feet of the assessment.
- Overwhelming Change Expectations: Employees are often left with numerous suggestions on how to improve their performance. Implementing all these changes at once can be challenging and counterproductive.
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- That statement is true, but only if one receives a lot of negative feedback and is expected to deal with all of it at once and asked to make the necessary changes within a short time frame. Any reasonable person should know that these are unrealistic and impractical expectations. It takes 2 weeks to embed a new habit, and longer to learn and model new behaviours, and see the results of the changes. This criticism lacks teeth, in my opinion.
- 360-Degree Data Is “Often Unreliable: As noted by a Harvard Business Review article, “data generated from a 360 survey is bad. It’s always bad.” The article further criticizes it stating “360-degree surveys are, at best, a waste of everyone’s time, and at worst actively damaging to both the individual and the organization.”
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- If I’m being blunt, this is just a lot of hooey. I have personally seen the benefits to both individuals and to organizations stemming from the administration of 360-degree tests. They’ve been anything but a waste of time and have provided the kind of targeted feedback being sought. Suggesting that 360 data is “always bad” is simply incorrect and biased.
- Over Emphasis On Negatives: Managers should concentrate on the positive during coaching conversations. Positive feedback is associated with better performance and higher productivity. Sadly, 360-degree feedback often focuses excessively on the negative, with employees typically ignoring their strengths.
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- This too is a ‘nothing’ criticism and I dispute the assertion. The whole point of a 360 is to identify where people are not thriving or succeeding. If all one wishes to hear is positives, then arrange to take the team out for lunch, glad-hand each other for an hour, and then go back to the office. Nothing will change, but at least everyone heard something nice about themselves. Furthermore, we’ve seen 360s come back with raters’ scores that are much higher than those given by the individual being assessed. In those cases, people walk out of the room on a cloud feeling very good about themselves and their abilities. The goal, however, is to show people where they aren’t performing as well as they could be, and thus it’s practically inevitable that most people are going to receive some ‘negative’ feedback from a 360. Doing otherwise would make the entire exercise pointless, and even negative feedback can be delivered ‘gently’.
At the end of the day, 360-degree assessments are just another option to choose from when trying to resolve problems, reorient struggling employees, develop future managers or leaders, and provide a road map to success for those who need and wish to make improvements. However, they are unique tools that offer more than just a personality or skills assessment by providing deep insights, hard truths, and unambiguous feedback regarding individual performance, both good and bad.
They’re definitely not the right choice in every situation, but they’re the best choice in many situations.
Creative Organizational Design carries thousands of assessments that are designed for all kinds of different applications from pre-screening to managerial readiness, to role-specific aptitudes, as well as a wide range of nearly 40 different 360-degree tests at various price points.
If you have a leader who’s struggling, an executive team that’s failing, teams that are dysfunctional and/or team members who are nearly coming to blows, there’s a test for that! A 360-degree assessment may be exactly what’s called for and the best way to get everyone back onto the same page.
We’re eager to help you fix what’s wrong and help you find the right choice for your individual challenges.
Click here to see our range of nearly 40 different 360-degree assessment options.
David Towler is President of Creative Organizational Design, a firm offering nearly 50 years of expertise specializing in employee assessments and has over 5000 different tests available. Creative Organizational Design has assessments designed to help employers screen out other people’s rejects, assess skills, aptitudes, attitudes, and ‘fit’ within an organization. For more information about the many options available and to obtain expert help in selecting the best tools for your needs please contact us because no matter what personnel challenges you’re facing – there’s a test for that! Please send comments about this article to dtowler@creativeorgdesign.com.