What Exactly is a 360-Degree Assessment and How is It Typically Used?


Feedback is a critical element in a person’s professional and personal development. Thus 360-degree feedback offers a unique opportunity for leaders to find out how their direct reports, their colleagues, their internal and external customers, and their managers perceive their effectiveness in various areas. By soliciting this feedback from the various rater groups, it gives the leader a more complete view of his or her behavior, strengths, and developmental areas. This type of feedback enables a manager to leverage the areas that are perceived to be strengths and target the developmental areas for improvement.

In the early 1950s, there was a wide acceptance and implementation of management by objectives, which helped formalize the feedback process. Individuals were then able to work with their managers to establish and meet specific gets that would benefit them as well as their organization. It also was discovered that both productivity and job satisfaction improved when people received regular feedback relating to their performance targets. This led to more structured performance reviews in most organizations.

One disadvantage to the performance review just described is that it offers a limited perspective. Typically, the manager is more concerned with the results rather than how the results were achieved, and evaluations often are based solely on financial results. This leads to a performance review that is less than complete. During the early 1970s, other approaches to feedback were explored, and research substantiated that feedback from direct reports was very valuable in the ongoing development and leadership effectiveness of managers. IBM was one of the first organizations to implement a 360-degree process over 35 years ago, and the company still uses the process as part of its leadership development initiatives.

Research since the 1980s has indicated that gathering feedback from multiple perspectives gives an even more complete picture of a manager’s effectiveness. Raters such as work teams, colleagues, and customers are affected by the behavior of a manager and thus have unique perspectives that can provide a more holistic view of the person’s performance on various competencies.

While organizations started using the 360-degree feedback process mostly as a developmental tool, many companies are beginning to incorporate parts of the 360-degree process into their more formal performance appraisal systems. Philosophically, we support the use of data gathered from a 360-degree instrument, along with other objective measures. We do not support, however, replacing a more structured and objective performance appraisal solely with 360-degree feedback data. The 360-degree data serve as a tool to provide a more complete picture of overall performance and effectiveness, and they are most valuable when used in conjunction with other measures.




The Transparency Edge. How Credibiltiy Can Make or Break You in Business
The Transparency Edge. How Credibiltiy Can Make or Break You in Business
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2004
Pages: 108

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