On 360 degree feedback

This is a companion post to the one on performance management here. This one focuses on 360 degree feedback.

360 degree feedback is a popular system to measure performance, behaviors, and competencies. The idea is to get feedback to a person from all stakeholders. Used by the German army during World War II. Makes sense due to matrix structures in companies today, involving multiple locations, business units, teams etc. Sources of feedback for each question/skill/behavior/competency:

• Self
• Manager
• Peers
• Subordinates
• Customers 
• Suppliers 

Why is 360 more useful than just your manager's feedback?

• Provides diverse perspectives from the lens of different stakeholders (for example, your manager might not know how you fare with your subordinates).
• Provides greater number of feedback data points. 
• Provides an avenue for feedback that is typically not given (for subordinates for example, make sure it's confidential)
• Identifies hidden strengths and development opportunities.

A good way to understand 360 feedback is to have a grid; 45% of feedback is typically unexpected (Antonini 1996, Ward 2003), and therein lies the value. 

	Strengths	Development
Expected	Strenghts (25%)	Development areas (20-30%)
Unexpected	Hidden strengths (30%)	Blind spots (15-20%)

How is 360 feedback used?

• Formal evaluation system
• Do not make this the sole source of feedback
• Self-ratings are inflated
• Peer-ratings are inflated in absolute rating, and deflated for forced distribution
• Developmental system (companies use this 3x more than first)
• Raters/ratees typically prefer this

What are challenges with 360 feedback?

• Inexperienced raters
• No accountability for ratings 
• No consistency in ratings 
• Misunderstanding of rating scales
• Key stakeholders not included 
• Low participation rates 

What are good practices for 360 degree feedback?

• Alignment: Make sure skills/behaviors/competencies are aligned with the company's.
• Continuity: Collect feedback continuously (say after each project), not once a year 
• Validation: Make sure to not conflate evaluation and observation (Don't give 1/10, because you have no datapoints on the person).
• Reliability: Need 9 subordinates, 8 peers, 4 managers to get a good set for a 5-point scale. 
• Use olympic judging: throw out highest and lowest scores
• Use intra-class correlation coefficient: > 0.48

Positive effects of 360 degree feedback:

• Helps make us and peers better
• Come up with a development plan, and follow through on it
• 72% thought managers do not follow up on their development plan
• Managers become more receptive to upward feedback, without feeling undermined