For decades now, I have conducted 360 feedback and coaching discussions with leaders at all levels, representing numerous companies, industries, and regions of the world. For the majority of these feedback/coaching discussions, I have worked with The PROFILOR® 360 assessment. I have also trained many HR teams in conducting feedback/coaching sessions, both in one-on-one and group format, using The PROFILOR®. In conducting these HR workshops, I have discovered that many teams have the same questions and concerns about conducting one-on-one feedback sessions. In this article, I will share more about the way a conversation should happen to facilitate the most productive and impactful feedback/coaching session. Future articles will provide additional information on conducting high-impact feedback/coaching sessions.
One of the most valuable things I learned early in my career related to 360 feedback and coaching sessions is not to just jump right into discussing the feedback, section by section, but to have a framework that guides you in your conversation. To be sure, this should be a conversation and not just a data review. As with any conversation, engage in it. Ask questions. Listen carefully to a person’s answers. Understand where the person is at in their career and where they want to be.
The following visual provides a framework to follow in 360 assessment feedback and coaching discussions.
While this is presented as a flowchart process, moving from one area to the next, the reality is that once the dialogue begins, you will need to be comfortable moving back and forth in the conversation. Similarly, while you typically start reviewing the feedback report from the beginning, you will end up going back and forth between sections to dive in further to the data, or to test out hypotheses.
Each of the stages in the flowchart above is discussed in more depth below:
As shown in the visual, begin the conversation by setting some context (background around why the 360 assessment was completed, intended use of the 360, etc.). Then, ask the participant about their goals for the feedback session.
a. Perspective Comparisons – This data shows the comparison of manager ratings (primary and secondary), peers, direct reports, and others. Pay attention to big gaps. They may reveal that a person needs to pay more attention in various ways to a certain perspective. This could end up being something for the person to focus on in their action plan. For example, if ratings from direct reports are far lower than ratings by the manager, this can mean that the person focuses a good deal on managing up. They definitely need to do more to focus on their direct reports. The ratings on specific items/behaviors will tell you where a person most needs to improve.
b. Highest and Lowest Behaviors – The PROFILOR® has three sections that help a person determine where to focus development. The first is the Highest and Lowest Behavior section, which includes the top five and bottom five rated behaviors by all others combined. This is a good section that often offers insight into strengths that could be possible strategic differentiators, as well as key behaviors and related competencies that a person may need to focus on improving. If the lowest-rated behaviors are considered important/critical to the current role or to future goals, they can and should be included as part of the action plan.
f. Comments – Sometimes people want to read the comments and try to determine who said what. While a person can see what a manager said about them, the verbatim comments from direct reports, peers and others are combined so as not to reveal who said what. Try to direct a person’s attention away from who said what and back to the themes that are important and most related to their desired future state.
In Part II of this article, we will discuss how to put together a strong development action plan, and how to be most effective in turning the insight gained from a 360 feedback process into action.