Don't Wait for the 360

Are you expecting a 360 evaluation in your organization this year?

I spent considerable time with two organizations administering their online 360 evaluation systems. Leaders send out surveys to their direct report (and sometimes peers and bosses) and then wait for the feedback to pour in.

And pour in it does.

Sometimes it floods in with data so diverse you wonder if everyone had the same survey directions.

And sometimes it doesn't pour in much at all. I've observed teams who swore that the feedback was NOT going to be anonymous (it absolutely was) so they withheld it. Why get in trouble? Why tell the truth under observation?

Except, isn't it the truth we're after? Isn't that the only kind of feedback that matters -- truthful feedback.

Whether or not it's accurate, we want it to be truthful: we want the evaluators to say what they really feel. Or do we?

What if they feel hurtful? What if they are mean spirited? Why if they unfairly lambaste a leader just because they didn't get the raise they'd hoped for?

I've seen all of that happen, and more. Any online anonymous 360 feedback tool is flawed. I'm not saying that we shouldn't use them. For many leaders they absolutely have value.

But, if you're waiting for a 360 survey to tell you what employees really think it's already too late.

What leaders need most is real-time feedback. Face to face feedback. Open, respectful, honest feedback. Dialogue. We don't need to grade each other. What we need is direction on how we're doing in connection with our mission and goals. What leaders need is knowing if the environment on their team is motivating, energizing, healthy, and productive.

Go ahead and participate in that 360. But please don't expect it to tell you the complete truth. You've got to ask for that in person.

Maybe you'll get it and maybe you won't. Maybe you'll appreciate it, and maybe it will lose you sleep. But you've got to ask for it sincerely, openly, honestly.

You do want to know what your people are really thinking, don't you?
-- Douglas Brent Smith

Comments

No Complete Failure

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What to Blame

It's better to blame the product than it is to blame the customer because you cannot fix the customer. -- doug smith

The Benefits of Supervisory Training

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One Kind of Choice

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Big Problems, Big Success

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Side Hustle Blues?

As a leader, do you ever sing the side-hustle blues? That's when your team seems distracted because they're tired from working multiple jobs. When I worked in food service it was all around me: team members who were already wrestling with variable schedules and also juggling multiple jobs. Maybe because they enjoyed their other gigs -- like the musicians, actors, artists, and writers on the team. Or maybe because otherwise they couldn't make ends meet so there were the side-hustles in driving, delivering, retailing, and add-on food service shifts. People are wonderful and their potential is unlimited but their physical selves are not unlimited. Which can bring on the side hustle blues when people are tough to schedule, hard to motivate, and just plain tired. You'll never eliminate the gigs that team members enjoy, nor should you. Those are not the ones really sapping the energy as much as those that they are in only for the money. Employees won't need an only-for-t...

Multiply Your Lessons Learned

Isn't it tempting to keep our mistakes to ourselves? We're just glad to get through them and really don't treasure parading our weaknesses around. But, what if by sharing our mistakes we can do some good? The lessons we learn from our mistakes can be multiplied by teaching others. It provides useful information (whether or not others take it). It shows our own humility. It demonstrates our compassion for others with the hope that they can avoid some pain or hardship that we've already experienced. We might have a hand in helping others avoid mistakes. And if others make fewer mistakes, won't that be good for us, too? -- Douglas Brent Smith

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