By Russel Horwitz

360-degree feedback is feedback that comes from all around the employee, i.e. subordinates, peers, and managers in the organizational hierarchy, as well as self-assessment, and in some cases external sources such as customers and suppliers or other interested stakeholders. It works because:

• It offers a much broader perspective than manager-only feedback
•  The feedback is perceived as more valid and objective by the receiver, leading to a greater acceptance of the need to make changes
• Improvements in leadership effectiveness tend to lead to corresponding improvements in the business itself.

Implementing 360-degree feedback has many possible pitfalls, and a misstep can result in the initiative doing more harm than good. This summary discusses the best practices that it implemented, will help ensure success of any 360-degree feedback initiative.

 Best Practices

1. Ensure that the organization is ready
Before implementing 360-degree feedback, it is essential that the organization is ready for the program. Here are some signs that the organization may not be ready:

• Environments that are low in trust – in these cases, it is better to deal with root causes directly, before attempting a 360-feedback initiative.
• Recent reorganizations – people ideally need at least 6 months of working with a person to be able to give valid feedback.
• Lack of coaching abilities among managers – can be effectively addressed through training.

2. Make the purpose clear
The primary uses of 360-degree feedback are:

•  Leadership/self-development
• Performance evaluation
• Succession planning

It is essential to communicate the purpose thoroughly with all stakeholders.

3. Start at the top
It goes without saying that for any manager that does not buy-in to the notion of 360-feedback, any initiative is likely to fail in his/her team. CEO and VP-level buy-in is critical. If implementing 360-feedback in large organizations in stages, the first stage should always be executive, followed by middle-management and so on.

4. Select the right tool
There are a myriad of 360-degree feedback tools out there. Not all will be right for your organization. Broadly speaking, there are only two approaches that work, these being standard and custom-designed tools. Paper or e-mail based methods should be avoided as they lack confidentiality and are time consuming.

Standard Tools
Many standard questionnaires are available as online assessments from a number of vendors. In general, standardized tools will be subject to the following advantages and disadvantages:

Custom Tools
Many vendors provide software that allows customized 360 questionnaires and processes to be efficiently deployed in organizations, and will have the following general advantages and disadvantages:

Survey Design
When using custom tools, the most critical item becomes the design of the survey itself:

a. The questionnaire should not be too long. It should be possible to do a review in 15 – 20 minutes, or expect complaints from reviewers!

b. Questions must be single-minded and pointed.

c. Questions must be a short as practically possible.

d. Questions must be unbiased, avoiding words such as
          “excellent” or “always”.

e. Questions must be categorized properly (or any category/competency analysis can become invalid).

f. For rating scales, use at least 7 – 10 points, and ask for the extent to which the person exhibits the behaviour, and NOT on the frequency with which that they display it.

g. Use a dual-rating scale to provide a gap analysis and to reduce rater bias to score consistently high or low, for example:

• To what EXTENT does this person exhibit this behaviour?
• Given his/her role, to what extent SHOULD this person exhibit this behaviour?

By subtracting the answers to these two questions, a gap analysis is performed, greatly aiding interpretation.

5. Ensure Confidentiality
Confidentiality is important for reviewers to give candid feedback. This is best provided via online tools.

In order to help ensure participant buy-in, reports should be shared with the minimum amount of people that still allows the overall purpose to be achieved.

6. Give Participants Input Into Reviewer Selection
Giving participants ownership to the selection of reviewers helps develop buy-in to the overall process. We suggest that reviewers be selected as follows:

• Have each 360 participant select his/her own reviewers

• Then, have their manager or HR review the list and make any final additions/deletions in consultation with the participant

7. Eliminate Destructive Feedback
Very occasionally, a judgemental and potentially hurtful comment may show up in a 360 report. These should be removed by the manager or a 3rd party before delivering the report.

8. Provide Reports That Facilitate Easy Synthesis
As mentioned earlier, the report that is given to the 360-degree feedback participant has one primary purpose – which is to assist with the formulation of a meaningful development goal. Reports are easier to understand if they sort items from highest to lowest scoring and if responses to open (written) questions are grouped in one part of the report.

9. Provide Support for Interpreting The Data
The interpretation of 360-feedback surveys is probably the most critical (and error prone) part of the whole process. Without guidance, many individuals will pick the wrong development goal, or they will pick too many, neither of which will yield good results. This can generally be accomplished via a short training and orientation session.

Recognizing Typical Work Patterns
There are some typical work patterns that will tend to show up for many, if not most participants, the key to interpretation is to be able to spot them. Examples of typical work patterns might be:

• Swamped with tactics, meetings and fires, but does not work strategically
• Overly strategic, but poor on execution
• Strong on advocacy, but poor on listening
• Doing too much, and managing too little
• Overcommitting to things

10. Provide Support to Develop Practical Action Plans
While having a clear development goal is essential, it is not enough. The development goal must be turned into actionable steps that can be taken to move towards it.

Action steps should ideally be developed in conjunction with the boss, or even better, in conjunction with peers via a facilitated session.

11. Ensure That Participants Involve Others
Individuals tend to make little progress when the entire plan is kept in their own head. It is essential that individuals be encouraged to share their development goal and action plans with those around them, and ask for regular feedback. Our own experience shows that individuals who do this are at least three times more improvement than those who do not involve others in their journey.

12. Follow-up
They say “what gets measured gets done.” In almost all 360-feedback applications, particularly those relating to self/leadership development and performance management, results are greatly improved through formal follow-up. Follow-up is typically done 6-12 months after the initial survey.

While 360-degree feedback is one of the most powerful tools for developing great leaders, it needs to be done right to be effective. Each of the steps we have presented here represents a link in the process. By ensuring that they are all in place, a successful 360-degree feedback initiative, and the associated organizational benefits, can be ensured.

Russel Horwitz is a principle with Kwela Leadership and Talent Management. His focus areas include: leadership development, training and professional coaching. Russel holds a coaching certification from the International Coaching Federation (ICF), and a Masters Degree in Engineering from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.