How one simple change led to better team reviews

Our team just kicked off Q4 with a 360 review, which we do every quarter. After all these years together, I’ve gotta say: We’ve come a long way!

We used to do reviews just one or two times a year, but we realized that spacing them out that much wasn’t as effective as it could be. It was hard to remember what exactly was going on in our company six months to a year before, and the feedback we gave each other was sometimes hard to implement because it was broad or outdated.

Now that we’ve upped our cadence to having in-depth reviews quarterly, we’ve built a lot more trust on our team. We’re able to be much more specific and timely with our feedback, and we can spend more time working through challenges together.

For a long time, our review process looked like this: We each came to the review with 1-2 things we did well over the last quarter and 1-2 things we thought we could have done better, and then we asked the rest of the team to comment and give us any additional feedback they may have.

The reviews were always valuable, but once we started doing them quarterly, I noticed that they weren’t always consistent. Sometimes, we would each get a ton of great feedback, but other times, because we were doing reviews so frequently, there wasn’t a lot of valuable feedback to add from quarter to quarter. The reviews remained a great chance to step back, reflect, have open conversations, and build trust, but still . . . I felt like we were ready to take them up a notch.

Last quarter, I experimented with asking the team to reflect on a question in advance of my review. I requested that everyone come to the 360 with their answers in addition to any other feedback they had for me. The question was: Where do you see me overstepping as a leader? Where do you see me under-stepping as a leader? The result was huge: I got extremely valuable, tangible feedback, and the team came with specific examples so that I could better understand what growth would look like to them. (You might remember the post I wrote about it.)

It’s not that the feedback I got in previous 360s wasn’t helpful. It was just that I was also able to incorporate discussion around areas where I knew that I was struggling and curious, and that feedback proved to be highly valuable. Asking a specific question was a way to enhance the discussion.

In our most recent review, I asked everyone to reflect on this question: What is one thing I can do that would make the biggest positive difference in our working relationship?

Again, the feedback I got was extremely valuable and tangible. Here’s what I heard: I need to rely on the team more; I need to show a greater openness to learn systems from start to finish so that I understand the big picture; I need to restrain myself a bit more from saying “yes!”; and I need to create the space for people to ask more questions. HUGE! I wouldn’t have received this actionable, tangible feedback had I not asked that specific question.

I’m not the only one asking questions now. Here are a few of the questions that other members of our team asked us to reflect on during our last review:

• How do you see me getting in my own way?
• What areas for growth am I overlooking in our company? What feels like it isn't working or could use revisiting??
• What ways do you see that I could step up in our working relationship to accomplish more together?

We are starting to find that using this format of posing questions in addition to asking the team to share general feedback has inspired us to think outside the box and has sparked great feedback conversations.

I believe that if we want better feedback, we must have the courage to ask better questions. The questions that make you get butterflies in your stomach and make you feel a little uncomfortable—those are the real questions. The ones that, by asking them, help you grow the most. They help you face yourself.

And the more specific we can be with our questions, the more it shows others how much we truly want the feedback. Asking something like, “How am I getting in my own way?” is much more specific and actionable than, “Do you have any feedback for me?” It shows that you recognize that you have blindspots or weaknesses and that you want to understand what they are.

In case you are inspired by this, here is a resource with questions you can ask to help you grow as a leader. Maybe you incorporate these into your reviews and ask people to reflect on them in advance of your discussion, or maybe you do this on a regular basis. What would happen if you asked those you work alongside one or two questions like this per month? How might you grow?

And if you want to lead a quarterly review of your own, which includes the 360 process, here is a resource that we’ve created to help you facilitate that.

May we all have the courage to have the tough conversations, to ask people for their feedback, and to ask meaningful questions. It’s the only way to grow!

Big hugs,

Kristen