This negative response to 360 degree feedback can frequently be heard bouncing off the walls of many an office. Senior managers and directors often approach the thought of such assessments within the work force with apprehension and fear.

John is a manager of a large stationery supply company and is experiencing this fear and trepidation at this moment in time. The powers that be, have insisted that appraisals are brought in to assess how the staff are getting on and to see how improvements can be made to ensure everyone is working as productively as they can.

John has never taken part in any form of appraisal before, and now he feels that this unknown quantity has been dumped in his lap with no real explanation on how to implement it. John’s apprehension is understandable, after all human nature by disposition would avoid attempting something that one finds difficult, due to a lack of understanding in any arena.

Unfortunately, having been given the task of implementing the assessment and then the feedback session itself, John’s lack of understanding on the process has given him a very negative viewpoint towards it. This will inevitably filter down through the ranks to the team members who are taking part in the appraisal itself.

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Alchemy for Managers Weekly Tip – guest post from Paul Matthews.

Many of the ideas of management grew out of the latter stages of the industrial revolution where there was careful measurement and specification of results. Tasks were standardised and managers saw their job as correcting people who didn’t follow the rules and procedures.

Our legacy today of this old management style is a legion of managers who think their job is catching people doing something wrong.

For better performance in today’s world, it has been proven time and again that you will get far better results by catching somebody doing something right and then rewarding them, perhaps just with a word of appreciation. Think of how you would react to this.

Performance management toolkit

Proving the business case for the investment in soft skills training can sometimes be tricky. We all know it makes sense. We all know there’s a positive impact on the business when we do it.  But strangely enough, that still the place where the budget get cut when times are tough.

Even more so for 360 degree feedback. It’s sometimes seen as an ‘add-on’ or a nice-to-have. We think that’s shortsighted.  Rather like the old joke about asking directions from a farmer who replies, “Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here.” If you don’t know where you’re starting from, it’s a lot tougher to get to where you want to go.

HRM Today, published a post on thoughts on the business case for using 360 degree feedback as part of development plans.

Let us know what you think.

Measuring the ROI

So, you think you should build a business case for development of core skills for your managers. You know you should include a 360 feedback programme , but how do you measure the return on investment? It’s easy if you’re measuring the production of widgets every day, or sales against budget. Not so easy with the intangible contributors to business success.

Search the web and you’ll find articles that claim research proves a 700% return on the cost. (My own simple computation differs from this, and is shown later in this discussion).

Yet another leading UK 360 provider claims that, “An abundance of academic research support 360’s positive impact on people and performance.” I happen to agree with them, but I also know that there are many executives who will want more assurance of tangible benefits before they’ll commit to this sort of initiative.

So why do it? Read the rest of this entry »

Reading Seth Godin’s post on Why ask Why?, made me think of one we wrote some time ago on dealing with employees who ask questions.

Actually, this could be said of anyone – not just employees. So if you’re considering working with someone new this year, or taking on a new member of staff, or working out who to include in a mentoring group – ask yourself this: Is this someone who asks questions a lot? And if so, are they the right sort of questions?

The sort of questions we should be looking for are those that lead to improvements. Seth’s final point; that without “why?” there can be no, “here’s how to make it better.” explains it all.

The right sort of questions are always those that challenge. The ones that seek understanding of why things are the way they are, and how they could be improved.

They can quite often be uncomfortable. They highlight things we could have done better and the tendency is to avoid them – but the very fact that they are uncomfortable is the sign that they are valuable.

So, how about making this year, the year of the question? Ask yourself those awkward questions you really don’t particularly want to ask. Ask for feedback from friends and colleagues. Some of the most valuable feedback I got last year was in response to my requests for feedback. And encourage your clients to ask the right questions. Use 360 feedback, appraisals and informal discussion to get them to increase their awareness this year.

I’m willing to bet that if you do that, you’ll see some transformations by the end of the year.

Photo credit: Margaret Anne Clarke

This is the first post in a series about tools we find useful (and think you will too) because they just make work easier. Mostly, they’re quite simple – which is probably why they make work easier, not more complicated.

We like tools that are simple to use. We’ve built that into our 360 feedback and employee survey solutions. What’s the point of having something with so many bells and whistles that people are likely to have anxiety attacks working out what to do next? We believe busy people want things to be clear, straightforward and easy to use. That’s always worked for us.

So here’s our tool of the week. It’s one I use when I want to set a date and I want to find out which date can be made by the majority of the people invited. Meet-o-matic is fabulous. It’s free. It’s so incredibly easy you can’t possibly make a mistake. And it does exactly what it claims to do.

Read the rest of this entry »

[This article was first published in HR Zone DOug asked me to tell you that. It's only fair to let you know they got it first.]

For your employees to be productive, motivated and loyal, it is vital that the line manager is engaged and knows how to lead a team. Doug Shaw shares his top ten tips on how to be a successful manager.

1.    Create the ‘right’ culture. Pretty much everything you do as a manager impacts the culture. Two important aspects are contact and communications. Make sure that contact and comms are regular, concise, relevant and meaningful. As well as face-to-face, one-to-ones and meetings, use technology e.g. MS Communicator. The important thing is to have contact; it doesn’t always have to be face-to-face.

2.    Be honest. Tell your people how it is and always give the rationale. It’s a manager’s job to translate the high level messages and make them relevant. It’s also a manager’s job to ensure that the priorities are clear, small in number and reasonably constant. Ensure the team understand that some things cannot be changed. Explain why this is the case and ensure they know what can be changed and importantly, how you and they can work together to achieve this.

Read the rest of this entry »

In today’s post for our coaching series, we are looking at the growing area of team coaching.

In this competitive market place teams are expected to be high performing, deliver consistently, and exceed business goals, and all with an eye to supporting and developing the organisation’s cutting edge future strategy. It could easily seem overwhelming.

Coaching the team as a whole can help align and strengthen a team for success.  Providing insight into individual members and the whole team team, coaching helps identify the strengths and development areas of the team and allows the team to ‘fix’ itself from the inside.

Team Coaching can deliver the following benefits:

• Defining a common purpose for the team
• Setting clear goals and objectives
• Facilitating better team communication
• Building trust within the team
• Builds team support and encouragement from the for whole team for each member of the team
• Team accountability for team results – sharing the hi’s and lows without apportioning the blame.
• Consistency in approach and communications from the team.
• working to the strengths of each team member

Read the rest of this entry »