Reflecting On Your 360 Degree Feedback
April 19th, 2011 | 
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It can be really hard to receive feedback. Not only can the less-than-flattering feedback have a negative impact on your self-esteem, but the glowing-all-over feedback can have the opposite effect by encouraging your ego to run amok. No matter how you react to feedback, it’s important to spend some time studying it and reflecting on your results before deciding to take action.
After seeing the results of hundreds of 360′s, I’ve never seen a perfect score. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen (let me know if you are someone who reached perfection; I’d love to interview you for a future post J). However, as perfect examples of human beings, leaders have both strengths and weaknesses that show up on 360′s. It’s a good thing to spend the time to put them both into perspective.
As you spend some time with your report (which I hope was artfully debriefed by a human resource professional, a consultant, or your executive coach), here are some questions to ask yourself to dig a little deeper into your reaction to the results (I suggest you spend some quiet time with a trusted advisor discussing these questions or journaling your responses on your own):
- What surprised me most about the feedback?
- What was I already aware of?
- What concerns me most?
- What am I most pleased with?
- What strengths showed up? What strengths do I want to explore further?
- What developmental areas showed up? Which developmental areas do I want to focus on?
- Who will support me in my development?
To keep you on track in your reflection, here are some things to be aware of:
The feedback you’ve received isn’t “the truth”: it is merely a collection of opinions from your stakeholders. Rather than truth, their perceptions (as seen through their life lens) have been captured.
You may accept or reject those perceptions: It is your decision and responsibility to decide whether you will accept and act on those perceptions. Choose carefully whether to act or not because there may be risk either way.
You can ask for more information: Because 360′s are “standardized”, it’s sometimes difficult to tell what behaviors you exhibit that resulted in the score for a particular competency (and behaviors, after all, are tangible things that you can change). For instance, if your results indicate that you aren’t inclusive, you might want to know what that means to your stakeholders. Ask them: “What behaviors do I exhibit that indicate to you that I’m not inclusive?”; and “What is one behavior that I can exhibit to be more inclusive?”.
Rather than receiving your 360 results and putting them away, spend some time reflecting. The next thing you’ll need to do is to begin an action plan based on your reflection.
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6 Responses to “Reflecting On Your 360 Degree Feedback”
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Mary Jo
I am now in the sunset of my career (age 75) but still going strong, and I attribute a lot of my success to having participated in a 360 Degree Feedback assessment many years ago. I was fortunate to have one of the best perform the assessment; it was during a time that I attended an Executive Program at UNC Chapel Hill.
It was one of the most valuable exercises of my lifetime. You’re right –it is not for sissies and you need to be ready for the feedback and you need to study the results and develop an action plan to improve the perceptions that you leave behind. —and many times lingers forever
I not only studied my profile I studied the 6 other profiles that described the results of the entire assessment. It has been 31 years since I did this and I don’t think a week goes by that I don’t reflect on these 6 profiles and how my assessment best interacts with each of them.
By the way I was somewhere between an Attacker and a Commander…. You can see why it was a valuable lesson…. These two profiles take few prisoners.
Wishing you continued success
bvg
Hi Bob, Thank you for the great testimonial to the importance of receiving feedback, and in particular 360 feedback (oh, and the importance of continuing to “go strong” at 75!). I’m humbled by your response, and the fact that your story tells how life changing receiving feedback can be.
My first 360 of perhaps 20 years ago showed me that I valued my talents less than those who responded. It resulted in a long conversation with my manager that was very affirming – and in its own way, was a life-changer for me, too.
I read the the book evidence based manager this semester and was impressed by the 360 feedback mentioned in the book. I am the person that extremely care about what people think about me. Sometimes I just doubt and change myself according to others’ comments, without thinking if what they said is really true. Although I never experienced 360 assessment, I really like your opinion that to treat this report objectively. Before reading this article, I really think the 360 is an overal and most accurate judgement about one person. Thanks for the idea.
One of the greatest gifts that a person can receive is the honest and sincere feedback of others. The 360 degree feedback style of tool does just that and before the existence of such a tool. A person had to truly take an “educated guess” at how they were being perceived. Why do I say “educated guess”? Because prior to the existence of tools or surveys where the anonymity of the people expressing their opinions could be maintained, a person giving any kind of feedback to another (especially to a person in a leadership position) had to keep in mind the possibility that the opinion given would be connected back to them giving it. That automatically creates the possible scenario where that person’s opinion “may” not be geniune or the complete opinion.
Without sincere feedback, there is the possibility that what a person does based upon that feedback will not be what that person needs to do in order to be a more efficient leader. It is this realization that lead me to truly value the feedback I’ve received via 360 degree feedback tools and surveys. Based upon feedback that was presented to me via these types of tools, I was able to change/adjust many aspects of the way I behave as a leader in order to be a better leader. This was especially true for opinions given that were clearly taken as hurtful even if it may not have been meant that way. It’s only by hearing and understanding the feedback (no matter how hard it may be to hear or how good for that matter) that a person receives that they can truly grow.
Thanks for taking the time to write this Mary Jo!
Gil
Gil, thank you for your testimonial. I have had the pleasure of working with many leaders who have had similar experiences, and you’ve described it well.
Hi Mary Jo,
This is really good – I’ve found that using a 4 x 4 grid … with nice/ nasty along the top axis and confirmation/ surprise on the vertical one, works well for capturing the key messages that come out of 360 reports