360° feedback

As the Scottish poet, Robert Burns put it:

Wuld that God the gift wuld gie us
To see oursels as others see us

Mostly we do not do this and the more senior we are, the less likely it is that people will tell us the truth. Yet aligning self-perception with the perceptions of others is critical to organisation performance. For instance, one US study of US Chief Executives showed that the more closely the feedback from others reflected their own perceptions of their performance, the more successful the organisation was likely to be.

360° feedback involves canvassing opinion from 8 to 12 people who know you well, usually your boss, peers, and direct reports (hence the label "360"). Sometimes it is also important to invite key customers to take part in the survey.

Our Approach

We offer two forms of this service

The Management Futures Leadership Questionnaire delivered through a secure, password-protected Internet connection. The report will give you bar charts on a range of leadership competencies, reflecting how each of your ‘constituencies’ sees you compared with how you see yourself. Respondents will also be asked to write in comments about how they see you as a leader. We guarantee anonymity for respondents.

An interview-based report where you also nominate respondents, as above. With this methodology, each person agrees to a confidential telephone conversation during which we carry out a structured interview around leadership behaviour. We can also add any particular questions or areas of concern that you might have. You will get a unique 5-8 page narrative description which will form the basis of your next coaching session and provides a solid platform for the coaching that follows.

Unlike the simpler questionnaire version, this approach allows the coach to explore behaviour and impact in much greater detail – each interview may last up to 30 minutes.

Our clients consistently tell us that this is the best-quality feedback they have ever had. The reports usually contain some significant surprises – eg

the client is taking for granted a strength or skill greatly valued by others
other people are more annoyed than the client has realized by an acknowledged weakness
your behaviour is actually minutely scrutinized by colleagues
colleagues see the client as a future star
colleagues do not know what the client’s personal values are
other people want to help – for instance when the client is evidently suffering high levels of personal stress
the client is more popular than they realize.

The benefits are to set our more clearly than managers and leaders have usually seen them before:

what the choices are about how to behave as a manager, as perceived by others in the organisation and culture to which you belong
a full exploration of personal style and impact including your communication style, delegation behaviour, how you manage performance, values
an examination of any inconsistencies in how you are perceived by your different ‘constituencies – eg sometimes managers put more effort into managing direct reports than seniors, or vice versa
early alerting to any problems
highlighting strength on which you should build
what the possible derailers are
what price might have to be paid if default behaviour is maintained - however unfair this may appear to be to you
what needs to be done to advance or manage your career.