The use of 360 degree feedback, particularly in support of senior leadership teams, continues to grow rapidly; yet the real value of the insight it can deliver often fails to materialise because organisations do not capitalise on the rich, strategically important, information which can be unearthed during the one-to-one debrief conversations.
There are a limited number of seats available for our next seminar on this topic; if interested then please register via our blog www.bowlandsolutions.com/blog.
For some time now, our clients have asked us to support them with the feedback session following a 360 degree feedback process – the debrief. A number of clients look to Bowland to handle the session itself. Be it for a leadership team of 6 or 7 people, or 200 partners/senior managers in a law firm, we are able to ensure that the 360 degree feedback process leads to a meaningful conversation on the feedback received. We are also, separately, able to extract additional value outside of the personal debrief session.
When listening to the feedback recipients respond to their feedback, and as we develop a very open conversation with them, themes emerge across the recipients. Some themes are common personal development patterns and suggest training or coaching interventions that may apply across a range of people. Other themes describe the system at play within the organisation.
Examples may be the influence that the pay/reward scheme has on behaviour or how the collapse of a particular market has led to a change in behaviours.
And finally, we hear organisational culture or processes at play. How one department perceives another, how two clashing departmental leaders are creating difficulties lower down in the organisation, how a recent strategic change is being experienced at lower levels and the uncertainty that is leading to disenchantment.
Because we are external to the organisation and our conversations are confidential we gain a fascinating, candid insight into the ‘real’ world of the organisation.
When a couple of our clients spotted this and asked us to report back to their leadership team on what we found, we saw the power of such a process. We now always offer to our clients the option of a written report and presentation to the leadership team or head of our findings. We get fantastic feedback on how useful that process is.
360 degree feedback should always concentrate in the first instance on the development of each individual. To extract maximum value from 360 degree feedback you should then link the personal feedback to the organisational themes.
There are a limited number of seats available for our next seminar on this topic; if interested then please register via our blog www.bowlandsolutions.com/blog.
