It's interesting that Ernst & Young are using 360 Degree Feedback as a communication tool between different levels in the organisation, rather than just a development tool for individual employees. A customised 360, designed specifically around the goals and the culture of the organisation, can be a critical tool for communicating key messages and expectations. By completing feedback for colleagues, employees are regularly reminded about how things are done and what effective behaviours look like.
The article also refers to employee goals - in our experience, regular review of employee goals and progress on goals is one of the most effective ways of motivating and engaging employees. Provided that those goals are relevant, stretching and achievable, of course!
For more information about goal-setting and performance management, contact us on 020 7206 7279.
This is a really good article which makes a lot of sense but I disagree that using 360 Degree Feedback should be used to directly identify bullying supervisors and managers. The 360 may very well become the nightmare tool that people fear because it's associated with problem behaviours rather than positive ones!
Therefore we would recommend evaluating good supervisor behaviours through 360 Degree Feedback, like helping and supporting your team, giving them work that develops their skills, and giving them regular and constructive feedback.
Bullying behaviours are so toxic that it needs more than an anonymous, development-based tool like 360 to deal with them. As you have said, clearly defining bullying behaviours, giving staff a confidential help-line if they need it, and demoting or firing people who bully others, are the best way to stop bullying in the workplace.
In this article for UK HR Zone, I've put down some thoughts about the types of people who are promoted in organisations, how they respond in crises, and what HR can do about them.
In this article from HR Zone, the writer discusses the legal aspects of the employer blaming the ship's captain, in public, for the disaster, before any investigation has taken place.
I guess it may be that in publicly chastising their employee in this way, the employer want to show the outside world that this is an individual problem, a 'bad apple', rather than a failure of procedure, organisation, training or other areas of employer responsibility. Even though it might put them in a poor legal position (at least in the UK), they probably thought that re-focusing attention on the hapless Captain Schettino was a good PR idea.
The statistics from this survey in People Management are not uncommon and staff surveys frequently highlight communication as a problem area.
In our work with senior management teams there is often a disconnect between what the Board think is happening, even at the next management level down, and what that next level of managers perceive as reality.
There's also the critical lack of awareness that individual board members and directors can have around their own skills and capabilities.
Self awareness is one of the most underrated capabilities of leadership, and it is strongly linked to a willingness to learn and to change. These are essential capabilities for leaders in the fast moving business environment
The same applies to teams. Teams need to look at their own skills and characteristics as a team, how they get things done, how they manage and deal with conflict, and how they solve problems. They are then in a position to plan how they are going to change and improve their performance.
So, as well as opening up and improving communications, Directors and other senior managers must be prepared to understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and must be willingto learn and to change. If they're not prepared to do these things, how will they be able to take the organisation forward?
In this recent article, Mr Bill McCarthy, President of Indiana based company Pepper Construction, described how his company has invested in his current employees using a number of employee engagement techniques (including 360 Degree Feedback) to become “a better company coming out of this economy than we [Pepper Construction] were going into it”.
Mr McCarthy carried out two 360 Degree Feedback surveys on his employees. The first was undertaken before implementing the techniques he talks of in his article and the second at the end of the 18-month technique implementation period. He claims (with some enthusiasm!) that there was “really significant improvements in all the measured areas”.
A big thumbs up to Mr McCarthy for his leadership and his enthusiasm for engaging his employees – and for using 360 Degree Feedback as a tool both for creating engagement and for measuring and tracking changes in performance.
Pepper Construction is a fantastic example of how investing in your employees can have a positive effect on the company’s profits, even in very difficult economic times.
Here's an common workplace problem that somone in today's Guardian is asking for help with - a peer who's been promoted and who's now behaving unbearably and micro-managing him (or her).
Other posters are right about the newly promoted colleague - she's probably covering up
for lack of confidence by micro-managing him. Or maybe she thinks that's how someone in a supervisory role needs to behave!
But it doesn't really matter why she behaves the way she does - that's just a waste of time. Honestly? Unless he takes some action, her behaviour isn't going to change.
And because he's upset and sore, he's going be to become even more sensitised to her behaviour as time goes on.
So he needs to steel himself and tell her how he felt in the specific instances he has mentioned. he shouldn't generalise ('you're a complete control freak/micro manager/
pain in the arse') - that will put him on the offensive.
If she argues back, he should just repeat what he's said until she listens.
He can offer a plan for working better together; maybe she agrees to stop breathing down his neck and only check in at agreed times with him, and
he agrees to keep her updated so she doesn't feel left out.
If this doesn't work, he may then need to talk to someone in work who can influence the situation.It may be that hisyour colleague is behaving badly with other people too, so it will then be up to their employer to force her to change her behaviour or move her along/out.
He shouldn't even think of leaving his job if he's otherwise happy - bullies (workplace or otherwise) should never be allowed to get away scot free!
A survey in Management Today last year described how 5000 employees described the leadership style of their boss.
"The survey found that the three most common leadership styles in the UK were authoritarian (according to 21%), bureaucratic (16%) or secretive (12.5%) - which sounds more Politburo than progressive. Only 10% described their bosses as accessible, and just 7% as empowering".
This left me wanting to know more:
What management style did employees think was the most effective? Surely the best management style is the one that's right for the particular situation you're trying to resolve.
And I'd love to know what how the bosses see their own management style, and how they would score themselves in a 360 Degree Feedback! You can bet your life they wouldn't say they were authoritarian, beaurocratic or secretive...they'd say they were assertive, organised and discreet!
The level of misuse, and misunderstanding around the use, of 360 Degree Feedback never fails to amaze me. This article about the GoldmanSachs Appraisal process, describes how Goldmans has been using 360 Degree Feedback. Pretty much everything they did was totally wrong and worst possible practice...including:
- Using 360 alone to rank people's performance in appraisals
- Allowing raters to be chosen on a random basis, so people were chosen who would give only positive feedback
- Glowing self-assessments were taken into account as part of the appraisal (this is implied in the article)
And please ignore the advice of the article writer, which is.....if you want to 'do well' in a 360 appraisal, "cultivate lots of people who think you're great", and write a great self-appraisal!
To recap, 360 Degree Feedback can only be valid and useful where there is a balance of feedback givers, where the process is clear and fair, and where there is no direct (or sole) connection to pay or reward.
Is this the future for the UK legal profession?
More than ever the challenge for lawyers is to be more than just technical experts. These booth guys have demonstrated commercial savvy and a bit of creativity in a very tough market.
To survive you’re going to need not just to be a good lawyer, but to be flexible, commercial, innovative, robust, able to lead, able to motivate and able to build client relationships. How many of your partners and associates can tick those boxes?
“What you do with your billable time is revenue. What you do with your non-billable time is your future.” David Maister.
Empower 360 Legal