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Graham Dodds posted in the group Coaches and Mentors
Hello All.
Hope you are all well.
I would love to learn from this group about your experiences with 360 degree feedback tools that you have used in coaching.
What do you use? Pros/cons? Any good free resources?
My current approach is primarily qualitative, through interviews with selected peers, direct reports, bosses, etc. I will also leverage existing 360 reports if the organisation has them in place. The qualitative interviews are a great way of getting deeper and more honest feedback, but it’s also very time consuming.
Any thoughts welcomed!
All the Best,
Graham.
5 Comments-
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Hi Graham,
Over the year I have used several 360s, generally, they were branded by the corporation. While they can be useful I think they can be misleading when coachees read them as lab results (engineers tend to do that 😂). 360s are good as a starting point of conversation and it’s up to the coach to create curiosity rather than judgment, intrigue rather than fear.
Having a choice I would look for one that allows you to see the disaggregated data. I am working with one right now that does not. Why? Say 5 your subordinates gave you an average rating of 6. This could be composed of 5+5+5+5+5+5 or 9+1+7+3+8+2; the real value would be in seeing this distribution and understanding why some people think highly of you, and some don’t. I think it’s also important that the questionnaire allows the rater to say I don’t know as they may not have had direct exposure to someone’s behaviour. I think interviewing people is far more effective as long as you can avoid leading questions and letting confirmation bias kick in.
Probably sticking to a clean language questionnaire and using it systematically may help in that respect. Hope this helps kick off a conversation, there’s a wealth of knowledge and experience in this group!
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Thanks so much Ilaria Vilkelis for taking the time to provide this detailed and helpful response.
I tend to start with a structure for the interviews, but then deviate off course as the question flows, then regret it later when I have less structure in my notes!
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I think we all do that when we are in flow! We get caught in the content and let go of the structure. The potential issue is unconsciously leading the witness to the answer you already know or expect. I remember a training where they taught us to stick to just repeating the last word of the interviewee without any affect as the only way to move the conversation forward. We were told it was used in advertising where you don’t want to stir the consumer one way or another to exactly understand their perception.
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That’s a nice tip, I learned something similar in a negotiation training class. Thanks again!
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Hi Graham, interesting question – Rebecca Beck, Mike Richardson, Ilaria Vilkelis, Regina Dundelova, Emma Jelley, Maria Evans PhD, Janis Chan, Alexandra Levy, Tracey Rob Perera, Ian Bessarabia, James McKerracher, Brian Farrell, Katherine Lambert, Caroline Marsh, Izabela Wlodarska, Joanne Peters, Rob Wright might be able to share their thoughts!