Real life Zoom:  Zooming into Focus with 360° Surveys

Guest author: Dr. Nick Norney, President, Agility Consulting (www.agilityconsulting.com)

360^o Surveys and Their Popularity.  The past decade resulted in a dramatic increase in the introduction and use of 360^o surveys for capturing data primarily for individual development.

The boss used to be the sole judge of performance and potential. For many organizations, the boss does not have the complete picture in terms of an employee’s performance and has to rely on feedback from others working more closely with the employee. The process of 360^o feedback was designed to increase the accuracy of that assessment and make it more relevant to the development of each employee.  The term “360^o feedback” refers to a delicate process in which employees get feedback from “relevant others.”  Rather than take the word of one person – who, for any number of reasons may not be able to see the person’s skills clearly nor evaluate them objectively – this process includes the voices of all relevant parties.

A good metaphor for a 360^o survey is a videotaped analysis of your swing, from multiple camera angles, by a golf or tennis coach. Just like this example of a “swing analysis” in sports, organizations have used the 360^o survey to capture multiple-rater perspectives on skills important to job success.

Conducting a successful 360 survey involves a structured process in which a survey instrument is designed and deployed  -- often by certified Executive Coaches -- to the subject, as well as to the subject’s boss, direct reports, and peers. The use of Executive coaches has grown in popularity as they provide a truly neutral resource to conduct the 360^o evaluation.

360 surveys using Zoomerang  The following example illustrates how an Executive Coach (Agility Consulting) used Zoomerang to conduct a 360 evaluation.

In this case, the Executive Coach was brought in to perform a 360 evaluation on a very successful manager (we will call Sam) who had recently been promoted into a senior leadership position with a firm in the Professional Services industry.  Agility Consulting created four versions of a survey targeting four different groups: Sam himself, Sam’s peers, Sam’s subordinates and Sam’s managers.

The surveys focused on helping to determine strengths and developmental needs.

In order to ensure confidentiality and track responders and nonresponders, the surveys were emailed through ZoomerangÔ to each person participating in this 360° process.

These highly confidential surveys were designed and used in conjunction with other measures to capture views from all these different perspectives.  A sample from a 360° survey created in ZoomerangÔ is reflected here. 

To effectively share the results with this individual during the coaching session, the results were requested from ZoomerangÔ in an Excel format, which were then analyzed and converted into Powerpoint slides.  As you can see from the graph, the “others – peers and subordinates” reflect a need for this leader to focus attention on his/her ability to anticipate and manage change.

It was an effective development tool for Sam to focus on the gaps found between Sam's self-perception and those of the relevant others. Together with the coach, Sam developed an action plan for improvement. It is this plan -- and none of the other documentation -- that Sam shared with his boss.

In general, the 360^o process can be administered as part of either a performance review system -- complete with implications for bonuses, rewards, and/or demerits -- or as a component of individual development. The difference between the two is in how those filling out the forms (called raters) perceive their role.

Cycle Time Improvement with ZoomerangÔ.  360^o feedback programs have been in use for nearly 30 years, but with the advent of hosted tools such as Zoomerang the cycle time for conducting the surveys has greatly diminished. Tools such as these are also easy to use making the need for using a third party service obsolete. It used to be that with many of other commercially available 360° assessment tools required the data to be gathered and sent back to the company that developed the survey for analysis, and the resulting report sent to the counselor/coach, who then conveyed the findings to the employee. Now with tools such as Zoomerang, it is possible to design, deploy, and receive immediate results from 360° surveys in significantly less time than many other alternatives.