3 Common 360-Degree Feedback Mistakes

When I’m helping managers provide 360-degree feedback to their employees, they frequently tell me, “I wish someone would have provided me with this kind of valuable feedback early in my career.”

Done correctly, 360-degree feedback is a valuable resource for educating employees about their strengths and weakness and providing them with a professional developmental plan to help them improve on their weaknesses and further increase their strengths. Done incorrectly, 360-degree feedback can lead to distrust, bad feelings and frustration within your organization.

Here’s a look at the three most common 360-feedback mistakes organizations tend to make.

They Manage the Process Internally

Sometimes companies use their internal human resources departments to run the 360-degree feedback process. The problem with this is the process lacks confidentiality.

When my team at Success Labs runs the 360-degree feedback process for an organization and gathering feedback from managers’ direct reports, we average the scores and anonymize their comments. This allows employees to get feedback, while keeping everyone’s contribution to that feedback confidential.

When HR manages the process, they don’t always keep the feedback anonymous. That’s a problem because you don’t want your employee who is receiving feedback to say, “Hmm that person said this about me,” because it can lead bad feelings and problems with their working relationship moving forward.

Another problem with HR managing the 360-degree feedback process is that if people in the department learn about the negative feedback, it may be difficult for them to separate that from their evaluations and could lead to bias down the road.

For example, if your managers are talking about promoting an employee and then your Human Resources department steps in and says, “I know he’s performing well and everyone thinks he’s doing a great job now, but in the past that did this.” So, your employee may have improved, but human resources is still holding on to their past perceptions on the employee.

Ideally, the feedback is only for developmental purposes and shared by an external coach or consultant. When I provide 360-degree feedback, I have a copy for each learner and they have copies of their own feedback. I share it with them, explain it to them, and they own it. They don’t have to share it with anyone. Nobody else within the organization sees it.

They Focus on Employees’ Weaknesses

It’s a mistake to look at a list of 30 competencies, point to the ones where employees scored the lowest then tell them that’s what they need to work on. Good 360-degree feedback addresses both weak and strong competencies. To learn to be good leaders, employees must learn to make the most of their strengths while improving on their weaknesses and not allowing them to stand in the way of success.

Many great leaders are strong in a few areas, understand how to uses their strengths to their advantage and then work around their weaknesses by surrounding themselves with great people who are strong in those areas.

They Don’t Create Professional Developmental Plans

For any 360-degree feedback process to be successful you need to create professional development plans for moving forward.

Although we keep the specifics of the feedback confidential, we create and share a development plan with others in the organization. It’ not important for HR and managers to know employees’ evaluation scores, but it is important for them to know how to provide developmental events to help employees increase those scores and continue to improve on both their strengths and weaknesses.

The goal of 360-degree feedback is to give someone valuable feedback about their strengths, opportunities for development and provide them with a plan of action.

Does your organization need help running its 360-degree feedback process? Contact Success Labs for assistance and executive coaching.

Success Labs is a full-service, strategic organizational and leadership development company located in Baton Rouge, La. For more than 25 years, our expert team of consultants has worked with hundreds of companies to explore their business potential and improve their company and cultural performance. Contact us to get proactive about your people strategy.