Leveraging the Impact of 360-Degree Feedback, Second Edition

John W. Fleenor, Sylvester Taylor, Craig Chappelow

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781523088379
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

From the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), this essential guide is updated with new insights, tips, and tools to help organizations get the most out of 360-degree feedback. This is a hands-on guide for implementing effective 360-degree feedback systems as part of leadership development initiatives in organizations. Written for professionals who work inside organizations and external consultants working with clients, the book draws on over twenty years of research and practice by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). The book provides step-by-step guidelines for successful 360-degree feedback as well as best practices observed and tested with CCL's broad base of clients. The second edition is updated with advances in the field over the past ten years and features new chapters on ensuring validity, why the process can fail, and the future of leadership development. The book includes worksheets, checklists, and other tools to use or adapt with a 360-degree process in any organization. Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) is a top-ranked, global provider of programs that develop better leaders through its exclusive focus on leadership education and research.

CHAPTER 1

Purposes and Uses of 360-Degree Feedback

What you’ll learn in this chapter

This chapter presents some of the considerations for implementing a 360-degree feedback process in an organization. We describe the distinct differences between feedback for performance and selection, and feedback for developmental purposes. Additionally, we state CCL’s approach for using 360-degree feedback for leadership development. In the subsequent chapters, we describe using a developmental approach in 360-degree feedback initiatives in organizations.

Most employees want to do a good job; however, many are unaware of the impact that their behavior has on their job performance. Feedback can help employees identify what they are doing well and to build on those skills, correct problems, and develop new skills that improve the organizations in which they work (CCL, 2019b).

Feedback is usually defined as information provided to an employee related to the behavior of that person on the job and the results of that behavior. It’s usually intended to strengthen desired behaviors or to suggest changes in undesired behaviors. Feedback can be a powerful stimulus for change under the following conditions:

• The feedback tells the person something important is not as it should be.
• The person is able to focus their energy constructively.
• The person has the resources to turn this energy into action.

Almost all of us want to know how well we are doing our jobs. In fact, when we do not receive feedback, we often seek it on our own by asking others (managers, coworkers, and friends) to provide feedback on our performance. Receiving feedback is an important motivational factor that can lead to increased satisfaction. Feedback is important because it can enhance self-awareness by highlighting strengths and can facilitate growth by pointing out areas in need of development. We learn from the outcomes of our behavior, and feedback is an important factor in helping us improve our performance. That’s why 360 feedback has gained such popularity and importance for providing developmental feedback to leaders (Fleenor and Taylor, 2018). Further, the impact of 360 feedback can be significant when it is embedded in a larger leadership development process. A great deal of research has found that 360 feedback can improve performance and lead to behavior change over time (e.g., Atwater, Brett, and Charles, 2007; Dai, Meuse, and Peterson, 2010; Nowack, 2019; Smither, London, and Reilly, 2005; Walker and Smither, 1999).

Despite its potential to bring about positive behavioral changes and develop leadership across organizations, feedback remains a rare commodity in day-to-day organizational life. People generally don’t like to provide feedback to others, especially if it’s negative. Managers often consider conducting performance reviews, often the only feedback some employees receive about their work, as one of the most difficult and unpleasant aspects of their jobs (Taylor, 2014).

The History of 360-Degree Feedback

The 360-degree-feedback method began as a development tool for leaders. In the late 1970s, organizations began using standardized methods to collect behavioral feedback. In 1978, Morrison, McCall, and DeVries published a Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) report that reviewed 24 assessments in use at that time and offered advice about the strengths and weaknesses of each. This report has been updated periodically by CCL (Van Velsor and Leslie, 1991, Jan., Dec.; Leslie and Fleenor, 1998; Leslie, 2013). By the late 1980s, the term 360-degree feedback began to be linked with these procedures. Van Velsor and Leslie (1991, Dec.) refer to multirater assessment as “360-degree feedback” in Feedback to Managers, Vol. II. The first attempt to integrate existing knowledge about this process was provided in 1993 in a special issue of Human Resource Management that was edited by Walter Tornow, who was then CCL’s vice president of research. In 1998, Tornow coedited a volume with Manual London, Maximizing the Value of 360-Degree Feedback, which further documented CCL’s expertise on the topic.

After that, the field grew rapidly with 360 feedback gaining increasing acceptance and significance in organizations (Bracken, 2019; Silzer and Church, 2009). The process continues to grow internationally—it is currently used extensively in North and South America, Europe, and Australia and has gained acceptance in Asian countries.

The Qualities of 360-Degree Feedback

The primary purpose of 360-degree feedback is to provide accurate and useful feedback on leadership effectiveness to leaders and their organizations (Fleenor and Taylor, 2018). This process includes collecting and reporting coworkers’ (i.e., raters) ratings of a leader’s (i.e., participants) effectiveness and providing feedback and coaching for each leader. Traditionally in organizations, feedback has come from a single source: the manager. But that approach provides only a limited perspective of a leader’s effectiveness. Without the operational and technological advances of 360 feedback, receiving feedback from multiple sources would be impractical and too expensive for most organizations to implement.

Throughout the 360 process, behavior change that is valued by the organization is created in leaders (Bracken, Rose, and Church, 2016). The implementation of 360 feedback has been shown to improve the financial performance of organizations. For example, 360 feedback was found to have a positive effect on financial performance through increased knowledge sharing and employee effectiveness in organizations (Kim et al., 2016).

Using 360-Degree Feedback for Leader Development

A great deal of research has been published on the design and implementation 360-degree feedback for leader development (e.g., Bracken et al., 2001; Bracken and Rose, 2011; Fleenor, 2019; McCauley and Brutus, 2019). Many of these practices are designed to provide feedback to leaders on changes needed to increase their effectiveness and to motivate them to make these changes.

Because of its structure, thoroughness, and anonymity, 360 feedback is likely to be accepted by the individuals receiving the feedback (Atwater, Brett, and Charles, 2007). Organizations can use the feedback for developmental purposes, potentially resulting in more positive outcomes than traditional performance appraisals. To ensure the best use of 360 feedback, it should be implemented within a broader leadership development context. For example, 360 feedback should be integrated into the organization’s leader development and succession planning systems to help identify how leaders can become more effective in their organizations. This integration should create conditions that allow participants to receive ongoing feedback coupled with novel job assignments, stretching their current competencies. Additionally, coaches should be provided to help participants improve on their targeted competencies (McCauley and Brutus, 2019). In organizations where it is not feasible to provide formal coaching, the leader’s manager may serve as the coach.

What are organizations trying to accomplish when they implement a 360 feedback process? Their goals are as diverse as the organizations themselves. Each frames and focuses its efforts in different ways. Some organizations use 360 feedback primarily as an integral part of development processes for individual leaders (for CCL’s position, see below). For example, a leader is struggling with providing direction and vision. After completing a 360 assessment containing the item, “Brings up ideas about the future of the organization,” the leader realizes from the raters’ responses that there is too much focus on tactical issues. The raters thought the leader was not sharing enough long-range guidance. Armed with this new perspective, the leader can change behaviors and become more effective in setting direction for the group.

Even when people have solid insights about their own strengths and development needs, they may not be aware of how these qualities affect coworkers. Consider this scenario: A high-tech manufacturing firm sends individual leaders one at a time to a leadership development program conducted by an external provider. In this program, participants take part in a business simulation and receive feedback on their behavior from the other participants. After the simulation, they receive the results of their 360 assessment from their coworkers back home. The participants are surprised at the consistency of feedback from these two sources. They now have a clearer idea of how consistently their behaviors affect others.

CCL uses 360 feedback for developmental purposes to provide the most valid and reliable data possible to its participants (see Exhibit 1.1). CCL’s philosophy toward 360 feedback is shaped by three lessons it has learned from working with leaders and from its research on leadership development (McCauley and Brutus, 2019; McCauley and Moxley, 1996).

Organizations may focus on 360 feedback for developing individuals in particular subgroups (for example, employees with high potential for advancing to leadership and executive ranks) or at different times in a leader’s career (such as prior to a promotion or near the completion of a developmental assignment).

In addition to its use in developing individual competency, organizations also use 360 feedback to determine group strengths and development needs.

Exhibit 1.1
CCL’s Approach to 360 Feedback for Development

• People can learn, grow, and change to become better leaders. There is ample evidence for this. People are not born to be good leaders; becoming a good leader requires hard work and learning.
• Self-awareness is the cornerstone for leadership development. Any development as a leader (or as a person, for that matter) begins with taking an open and honest look at one’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Development is an ongoing process closely related to one’s work and their work environment. The challenges in a person’s work drive them to learn and grow. You cannot expect to send people to a single training program and have them return “fully developed.” However, such events can play an important role in the development process if they are closely linked to the challenges of the work situation.

For example, by compiling individual feedback results into an aggregate group report, a company can focus on the skills that, as an organization, it wants to maintain or develop further. The resulting information is built into every leader’s developmental objectives for the upcoming year. Taking this example one step further, some organizations use the group reports to establish needs for organization-wide leader development activities.

Some organizations use 360 feedback initiatives to broaden awareness of valued and desired behaviors. The process of responding to the specific items on the assessment emphasizes these behaviors and usually triggers discussion throughout the organization. For example, a large insurance company decided that the key to its survival was to be less bureaucratic and more entrepreneurial. It used a 360 feedback assessment designed specifically to measure behaviors found in successful entrepreneurial environments. The company implemented this process first with its senior leaders and then cascaded it down through its new leaders.

Another example comes from the telephone industry. One service provider decided that it was going to pursue excellence in customer service for its subscribers. The company started a major initiative that included conducting internal customer-service workshops; individual coaching; pushing decision making downward in the organization; and completing 360 feedback to focus on decisiveness, customer focus, and responsiveness. As a result, the company was able to help its leaders see where their skills did or did not match the organization’s valued behaviors.

The use of 360 feedback can support three types of organizational values: open communication, valuing employee input, and setting expectations that people should take charge of their careers (see Exhibit 1.2).

Why 360 Feedback Is Needed

In busy organizations, people often find themselves lacking feedback. Two factors play into this. First, people become caught up in day-to-day pressures and fail to pick up the cues from others that provide ongoing feedback. Consider this all-too-familiar scenario: After a tough meeting, a manager gets a pat on the back from a colleague for handling a presentation well. The next day, a peer says the manager’s reaction to a sensitive question was unnecessarily defensive. These small bits of data—informal feedback—float around managers all the time, largely unattended in the rush of business concerns.

Exhibit 1.2
How 360 Feedback Supports Organizational Values

• Encouraging open communication. A major urban hotel group wants to encourage open communication among its owners. One part of its approach is to initiate a regular 360 feedback process in which each of the six participants is a rater for all the others. This surfaces issues for discussion and helps establish an open-door work environment. By asking others to complete the survey, these leaders are indicating that they are amenable to performance feedback. They are, in a sense, establishing a norm for communication.
• Valuing employee input. An organization becomes particularly interested in using a 360 feedback instrument as part of its efforts to enhance employees’ sense of empowerment. The process of 360 feedback is inclusive; soliciting participation from diverse rater groups indicates that the organization is interested in their perspectives.
• Setting expectations that people should take charge of their careers. An international consumer products company encourages its leaders to actively plan their career progression from the day they are hired. The company uses 360 feedback to put data in the leaders’ hands and responsibility for career planning on their shoulders.

Formal 360 feedback provides something that informal feedback seldom does: a structured means of collecting and processing data and an opportunity to reflect on this valuable information (see Exhibit 1.3). It may be the only time some leaders consciously stop to take stock of their effectiveness in an organized way.

A second factor that impacts an individual’s access to meaningful feedback is that giving and receiving feedback can be perceived as threatening activities (they may actually be threatening, in some instances). Often people in organizations think that giving and receiving feedback is not worth the risk.

Contemporary organizations pay a lot of lip service to the need to increase communication in all directions; at the same time, many people are reluctant to give performance feedback to coworkers, especially to their superiors. The higher up in the organization one moves, the less feedback one receives (Kaplan, Drath, and Kofodimos, 1985).

Exhibit 1.3
Five Reasons for Using 360 Feedback

1. It provides answers to the question, How am I doing?
2. It can be used as a guide for continuous development.
3. It can help leaders check the validity of their self-perceptions.
4. It ensures that leaders view themselves realistically.
5. It encourages the organization to invest in the effectiveness of leaders.

Formal 360 feedback, by its nature, helps reduce the interpersonal threats of face-to-face feedback for both parties. The formalized structure and the neutral character of the assessments provide a format for objectivity. The formal feedback process also focuses on the valid assessment of behaviors that the organization values. Exhibit 1.4 is a model developed at CCL for delivering feedback and reducing the resistance to the message.

The Importance of Multiple Perspectives

In the contex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Purposes and Uses of 360-Degree Feedback
• Chapter 2 Using 360-Degree Feedback for Talent Management
• Chapter 3 Characteristics of the 360-Degree-Feedback Process
• Chapter 4 Implementing 360-Degree Feedback
• Chapter 5 Facilitating 360-Degree Feedback
• Chapter 6 Factors Affecting the Validity of 360-Degree Feedback
• Chapter 7 Avoiding Common Pitfalls of 360-Degree Feedback
• Chapter 8 The Future of 360-Degree Feedback
• Appendix A: Benchmarks® for Managers™ Orientation Template
• Appendix B: Benchmarks® for Managers™ Feedback Workshop Template
• Glossary
• References
• Recommended Resources
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• About the Authors
• About the Center for Creative Leadership
• About the Center for Creative Leadership’s Assessment Certification Workshop