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No-fault feedback can invigorate your organization

By Michael Stern 16th July 2008


A few months ago, I wrote a column about the increasing popularity of 360-degree feedback as a performance assessment tool. Although companies increasingly claim to focus on "talent management," most managers still have trouble speaking frankly about colleagues' strengths and weaknesses.

Thus 360-feedback, which solicits in-depth reviews on your performance by a group of peers, bosses and subordinates, is the tool of choice for providing robust, realistic evaluations of employees.

But the method isn't perfect. Devising the right surveys and processing responses is a cumbersome, costly affair that serves to build a formal, expensive infrastructure around behaviour that many organizations used to get for free.

Some companies get the same benefits year-round by creating a culture that encourages and embraces feedback from peers, every day of the year. Call it 365-feedback instead of 360.

Creating a system to continually improve individual performance through an continual culture of feedback and self-improvement isn't easy, either. It requires colleagues to act like teammates, not rivals. And it demands that people accept criticism and learn from it.

But the benefit outweighs the risk. Imagine a culture where managers and executives are focused on helping each other become stronger: more thoughtful, more strategic, more self-aware, and better communicators. Imagine the teamwork and trust benefits you'd accumulate if all your people truly believed that (and acted as if) they have each others' best interests at heart. And imagine the savings if there were fewer formal 360-degree surveys because employees had learned to provide, and listen to, feedback in real time.

They're interacting every day anyway —why not encourage them to talk about things that matter? If, for example, a peer behaves badly, loses his temper or shows disrespect for others in a meeting today, you don't have to wait six months for human resources to send around a form for you to comment on that behaviour and why you think it was wrong.

In a culture of no-fault feedback, you might drop in on that colleague and make a few observations about the meeting. You might cite his good ideas or unique approach, and then sidle into the main point: "I don't know if you noticed it, but I think a number of people at the meeting were put off by the way you talked about the marketing department today. I wonder if there was another way to make your feelings known?"

At many companies, that person would feel you had no right to question his style. But in a company that values collegial feedback, he might just say, "I didn't notice that. How do you think I might have handled things better?"

The result: two management professionals discuss the right and wrong way to approach problems, get the most out of their colleagues and do what's best for the company. The office changes from a place where people constantly observe each other but keep their doubts and concerns to themselves, to one where they are not afraid to discuss personal issues and explore solutions together. In the end, a colleague may not agree with your interpretation of the problem, but you've had a detailed conversation about expectations, intentions and best practices worthy of a graduate seminar in organizational behaviour.

Most people are at least dimly aware of their personal shortcomings, and most people want to improve. But when no one dares talk about them, or they're mentioned once a year as a part of a comprehensive performance review, they're easy to ignore or rationalize away. When you hear similar complaints from different people several times a year, you are much more likely to accept these criticisms and do something about them.

How do organizations create such a climate of trust and co-operation? It doesn't happen by accident. First of all, you have to create a climate that values feedback and encourages it. From the CEO on down, you must make it clear that good performance will be rewarded. But you also have to look after the details. Everyone on the team must be trained to accept constructive criticism, which means they must also be coached in the fine art of providing feedback that is carefully phrased and rooted in goodwill.

The most important task is ensuring that people are motivated to share their views, to listen to each other, and to adjust their behaviour. The best way to do that? Specify what behaviours you wish to encourage in your people, and turn them into formal objectives. Keep track of people's ability to take interest in how others are behaving, and their willingness to listen and adapt to the feedback they get themselves.

As with many other qualitative performance metrics, such as teamwork or customer service, measuring these results will require some subjective interpretations. But peer-based management is pretty powerful: before long, each employee's attitude and commitment to self-improvement should be obvious to all.

Finally, to reward the behaviour you wish to encourage, you have to include these 365-feedback objectives in calculating employees' compensation. I can't think of a behaviour more worthy of bonuses than demonstrating a willingness to grow - and to helping others do the same.