We began using 360-degree feedback in our Organisational Development work with organisations in developing leaders, collaboration, and teams some 32 years ago in 1990.
Our reason?
We believed, and so did our clients, that development programmes that focus on building leaders, collaboration, and teams require people that learn about themselves, their behaviour, and how to best develop their capabilities as well as learn about others with whom they closely work. To meet these points, we had previously used a number of tools and psychometrics, such as MBTI that was popular with organisations (and unfortunately still is) but found through the experiential learning approach that we took that people did not necessarily behave in the way that such instruments like the MBTI predicted.
We began to use 360-degree feedback as a means of getting behavioural feedback from peers, team members, stakeholders, and their line supervisor – a total of 14 ‘feedbackers’ (that includes that of the individual) - either before or during the programmes we ran where such information would be openly shared and updated as and if required. This open sharing was a unique feature then and still is today for in most organisations, possibly as high as 9 in 10, the information in an individual’s 360 report is shared with only the individual with invaluable data it contains hidden away.
Importantly, we found that the quality of learning and the essential transfer of learning back to the workplace improved. From thereon we have believed in and developed 360-degree instruments for use with, and by, clients in supporting their leadership and collaboration development needs.
In our work we were frequently asked to coach individuals and teams and have always in these situations used 360-feedback, for it provides people with invaluable evidence-based objective multiple sourced data on their behaviour from those with whom they work and interact daily – a major strength over many other instruments and tools used that rely on the limitations of self-report data.
However, by the middle 1990s a number of organisations we were working with were now seeking to collaborate together with other organisations through joint ventures, projects, and partnerships. We started then to use 360-feedback with the leadership teams comprised of members drawn from the different organisations now compiling their individual data together to reveal the teams combined top 3 strengths and their top 3 limitations. This sharing amongst the group was powerful, for it significantly started to build the trust so much the foundation on which effective collaboration is built and maintained.
This sharing also taught us another lesson, that leaders who share their 360-feedback data with their teams create an environment of openness that encourages other people to do the same. This ‘up, down, and across’ approach is very important in the process of building collaboration between organisations with different goals and cultures but just as important with a single organisation where geographic locations and departmentalisation can lead to ‘silos’ that defeat teamwork.
The leader that shares the content of their 360-report with their team is adopting a different leadership style from the norm, for majority of leaders would feel uncomfortable in doing so. This point is actually quite interesting, for the majority of the people the leader would be sharing their report with would most likely have given them the feedback, so in the main these people know it but the leader may not.
The concept of sharing 360 data we have found to be to really beneficial as it leads to a evolving style of leadership that fosters collaboration an ever more important factor in our post-pandemic world of work for it can potentially bring about a shift in the way the organisation works and thus a change of culture to more inclusiveness.
Significantly, the sharing of 360 data such as the top 3 strengths and top 3 limitations – those behaviours that need to be developed – can really help top leaders of organisations make right strategic decisions if they know what the behavioural strengths of their organisation are. Too many times businesses make poor strategic decisions for they are unaware of their people’s strengths through poor Talent and HR management.
In a world where talent is an increasingly rare commodity developing, retaining, and promoting the right people for right role has never been more important. Collecting and collating 360 data on the organisation’s leaders at every level is highly revealing for it often shows that those people who have been put forward as talent by their line supervisor do not necessarily have the behavioural data to support this. Now with this data they can be matched up with a coach to help them develop or possibly others more suitable on the data collected developed through their working with a coach. A lack of leadership behavioural information is why leadership development is not as effective as it potentially could be in many organisations.
Our experience and knowledge gained over 32 years of using the 360-feedback approach has led us to develop the online Collaborate360 instrument bit.ly/Collaborate360 that is now available for organisations to use.
We are happy to share our knowledge and expertise with you as well as support you in your Leadership Development role in your organisation or if you are an coach in your work with your clients.
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