360 Feedback
360 Feedback is a modern and popular means of building healthy and productive teams and companies. I confess that many years ago, my attitude towards 360 reviews was much the same as my attitude towards a colonoscopy; since necessary, get it over with and hope for good news. I have come a long way since then, having found that candid 2-way feedback to/from trusted colleagues (at all levels) is a performance multiplier, that reinforces great performance, and provides corrective guidance for areas where performance is lacking.
I have several instances where I fell short, and a colleague (with whom I continued to have a very good working relationship) took the time to give me candid face-to-face feedback. Looking back, and I see these events as positive inflection points in my career, where I was able to self-correct, and move forward as a much stronger leader. Thus, I now fully embrace and seek candid and actionable feedback (feedback must always be actionable) from all of my team, leaders, peers, and stakeholders. This, while knowing that some of the feedback might not be easy to receive.
Before continuing, it is important to state that my thoughts on 360 feedback are all within the context of healthy and productive relationships, where great work is being accomplished. The situation is different when the relationship is not healthy (hopefully outliers). For example, when a co-worker is not working within a productive and trust-based relationship, or is engaging in abusive or bullying behavior, etc. Or where there is a serious problem like harassment. In these cases, the 360 system is one of many ways to surface these serious issues to management so they can be addressed.
Within the context of healthy and productive relationships, I believe that successful 360 reviews are built on a 3-way trust model. 1) The person giving feedback must have trust that the recipient values the relationship and will accept the feedback as an opportunity to improve themselves and the relationship with the feedback provider. 2) The person receiving the feedback must have trust that the feedback provider is giving feedback with the sole intent of improving the relationship, and not intending to sabotage the their career. 3) Both the feedback giver, and receiver must trust that their feedback will not be taken out of context by management, or that candid and healthy feedback will not be used punitively.
The risk of the 360 is that when companies grow, leadership can become insular and detached from the larger teams that they lead. They then use the 360 as a performance metric, often free of any context from the feedback giver, thus violating the third point of trust. When this happens, I would suggest that the 360 system is no longer capable of supporting healthy and productive teams, and each successive 360 cycle will see a reduction in both the quality and quantity of feedback. Coworkers may avoid giving each other critical feedback for fear it will be used punitively. Subordinates may be afraid of giving candid feedback to superiors for fear of retribution. Senior leaders may engage in horse-trade feedback to maximize odds of surviving the current review period. Worst of all, high-performing employees who fully embrace a candid feedback culture and the 360 model may become disillusioned, and decide to leave.
Data Engineering Lead | Mentor, Gartner Ambassador, IEEE Senior, BCS Fellow, Judge, Technical Reviewer
5 年FXstrikes (Nader Abdel Azeem)nbbbjy hgdem
Delivering More and Better Software, Faster aka "Senior Build and Release Engineer" at Zoox
5 年Well said, David. You may be pointing out exactly where the dissonance lies between my remembered experience of working at Netflix and the periodic buzz in the media (including social media) about “culture of fear”. I could very much imagine that if someone experienced 360s in a situation missing one or more of the legs of the trust triangle that it would entail a large amount of anxiety and fear. Given that everyone working at Netflix is human, and that all humans are capable of making mistakes, it seems reasonable to assume that mistakes have been made. More mistakes in the future will also probably be made. Yet based on my experiences there, it is also reasonable to assume that those mistakes were learned from and corrected. Granted, corrected too late for those folks who unfortunately feared for their jobs or experienced a tainted or flawed process. Yet it is a spark of hope for me that I can believe there is a workplace where fear is the outlier instead of the norm. I feel particularly grateful (shameless plug ?? ) to have found a second chance to experience that kind of hope again where I work now.