Do-it-yourself 360 feedback

David Nguyen, a friend of mine from business school, is working on an innovative system for doing surveys within companies. He asked me what I'd use it for, and I immediately thought of the 360 feedback process.

In a typical 360, for instance for leadership skills, a leadership survey is sent to the leader's manager, peers, and direct reports. The number of people surveyed is typically 6 or more. The data is submitted anonymously and then tallied for the leader to review.

This process can give leaders two things. Most obviously they get a survey of how they are perceived as a leader, which could include information on problems that they weren't aware of.

The other benefit is more subtle--it creates a great opening for a leader to develop better connection with those around him by asking for further input, 1 on 1, based on the rolled up results of the survey. There is great potential here.

Here's one challenge--it can be an expensive and time-consuming process, to set up the 360, have everyone fill out 100+ item surveys, and bring in the consultant to administer the whole thing.

Thus I see an opportunity to use a system like David's to do my own 360 feedback process. To make such a process work, here are the key questions that I've asked myself, and my answers to them.

1. What’s my goal in doing this survey?
I have two goals, really. One is to build connection with the people who I collaborate with the most. The other related goal is to come away with two concrete things to work on in order to be a more effective collaborator.

2. What area do I want to focus the survey on?
Within the general topic of collaboration, I’d the questions to focus on my skills in two specific areas: how I am as a partner for coming up with new ideas, and how I am when it comes to making collaborative decisions. Along those lines, I’ll need to find a well-built survey which asks practical questions in this areas.

3. Who am I going to ask?
I’m going to ask the people who I work most closely with. Fortunately these are all people who I trust and have great respect for. Because this is the first time that I’m trying this process using a survey, it’s especially important to me that I work with a group I can readily trust.

4. Will I do this survey only one time, regularly, or on-going?
I’m going to do this survey once and see how it goes. If the process shows promise, I could see asking colleagues to participate with me twice a year. The key thing for me is that I’d want to be able to capture these results as a one-time “package” so that I can compare them as a set with future results.

5. What will I do with the survey results?
I’ll first look at areas of agreement amongst the raters, regarding strengths and weaknesses. From those I’ll identify two specific areas that I want to work on. Then I’ll schedule an initial conversation with one of my raters, to ask for one on one input on those areas. Based on that conversation, I’ll schedule time with other raters.

My take is that the key here is to start small, simple, and with low stakes. If I can get value from the first experience, then it positions me to try more next time.