Envisia Learning

“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.” -Jose Ortega y Gasset

Personality does indeed influence how participants react to 360-degree feedback, how motivated they will be to act on the suggestions and observations of others, and how likely they will be to implement and sustain new behaviors to become more effective. Here are some research findings supporting this:

Research by Smither, London, and Richmond (2005) explored the relationship between leaders’ personalities and their reactions to and use of 360-degree feedback. Leaders high in emotional stability were more likely to be rated by a psychologist as motivated to use the feedback results for professional development.

Additionally, leaders high in extroversion or sociability were more likely to have sought additional feedback six months later, while leaders high in conscientiousness were more likely to have engaged in developmental behaviors.

These researchers also found that extroverted leaders who are open to experience were more likely to perceive and view negative feedback as valuable and were most likely to seek further information about their feedback.

In general, individuals with high self-esteem reported more favorable attitudes toward the 360-degree feedback than those with low self-esteem. Feedback recipients who rate themselves highly on receptivity and the desire to make a good first impression were also perceived by feedback providers as having more positive reactions to feedback (Atwater, Brett, and Charles, 2007).

Research by Bono and Colbert (2005) suggests that the motivation to change behavior following 360-degree feedback is related to a personality concept called core self-evaluations (CSE). Specifically, they found that individuals with high levels of core self-evaluations (those with high self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, internal locus of control and low neuroticism) will be most motivated to change behavior when they receive discrepant feedback, while those with low levels of core self-evaluations will be most motivated when others’ ratings are most similar to their own.

These results suggest the potential value of coaching to assist individuals to understand potentially complex feedback and to increase the motivation to set developmental goals. In general, leaders with an internal locus of control (i.e., those who believe they have some control over what happens to them) tend to react to peer and subordinate feedback more favorably, with a greater intention to improve their skills.

Goal orientation may influence whether an individual views feedback as a development opportunity or a challenge to his or her self-rating. Individuals with a learning goal orientation tend to hold a view of ability as modifiable and believe they are capable of improving their level of abilities (Brett and Atwater, 2001). These researchers found that those with a learning goal orientation believed the feedback was more useful than those with a performance goal orientation.

Taken together, it seems people are most motivated to use 360-degree feedback for development when they are conscientious or extroverted and when they had high self-efficacy, an internal locus of control, and low anxiety. As a result, coaches should assess the personality and style of their clients and reflect on how this might impact the receptivity and use of the 360-degree feedback results.

Coach’s Critique: 

Some people are truly limited by their abilities to benefit from coaching and/or a behavioral change program. So, 360s could perhaps be implemented on most  types of individuals, however, who will actually utilize it as way to change behaviors is impacted by many factors including to a great extent, personality.

There are certain personality types such as the ones mentioned above that reflect individual level of coachability to create and sustain change. On the other hand, there are people with personality types that are considered so extreme that even the most seasoned and brilliant coaches cannot get them to change their behaviors. It is hard enough for any type of person to change and form habits, independent of personality. Now, to expect people to change with personalities that are less likely to result in proactive behavior and deliberate practice is simply NOT probable!

With that said, coaches should guage at their client’s likelihood for improvement by understanding their personality traits. In our recent book, Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It, Ken and I talk about the process and methods for maximizing coaching, as well as research about the various personality traits and their impact on behavioral change.

If you are interested in your own personality and how others experience it, take our brief 45-item five factor inventory at www.innnateindex.com.

What has been your experience with the impact of personality types on 360s? What personality types in particular were more prone to acceptance of feedback and/or development initiatives?

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” -Wayne Gretsky

A fundamental issue that comes up in practice has to do what to do once 360-degree feedback has been implemented. How do we maximize the use 360s to ensure our client’s behavior change?

Organizations that implement a systemic approach to talent development with support from a manager and follow up development activities tied to performance improvement will have the most effective outcomes in leadership development (Nowack, 2009).

1. Manager as a Coach. A better understanding of the role of the manager as an important internal coach and how organizational culture influences promoting and sustaining new behavior is in need of greater exploration. The manager can reinforce and support the implementation of the development plan of the participant. This is important in light of recent findings suggesting that effect sizes for transfer of management training interventions are generally low (particularly when seen by direct reports and peers) but can be improved significantly with opportunities for structured and deliberate practice (Taylor, Taylor, & Russ-Eft, 2009).

2. Online Goal Setting/Reminder Systems. Use of newer online goal setting and development planning/reminder systems can facilitate goal planning and follow-up in order to leverage multi-rater feedback interventions. In a recent unpublished one-year longitudinal study using this online coaching system with a major university medical center, significant behavior change was observed by managers, direct reports, and peers on a post-program assessment (Nowack, 2011).

These finding suggests that performance can be practically enhanced by using a 360-degree feedback process involving managers as “performance coaches” and holding participants accountable for creating and implementing a development plan based on 360 results.

Coach’s Critique: 

It is very common for 360s to be utilized without any kind of plan for leveraging the feedback for behavioral change. Organizations implement department wide 360s and hope that somehow the awareness that they received automatically turns them into better leaders. Managers implement 360 on their team, and expect that it would somehow result in their behavioral change without them knowing how to set goals, or have any kind of accountability or support system to work at their goals. Unfortunately, these expectations may be deemed as”wishful thinking”!

While feedback is a necessary condition for behavioral change, it is NOT sufficient in and of itself. In order for participants to translate their feedback into new habits, they need to collaboratively agree upon goals with their manager, and implement an accountability system in order to achieve them. While this is a necessary approach, managers often neglect to coach their teams, either because their organization isn’t rewarding them for it, or because they aren’t aware of the importance in doing so.

We all know that learning a new behavior isn’t easy. It is often a bumpy road for many individuals seeking change. In fact, research by Anders Ericsson and colleagues suggest that it takes about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice with on-going feedback in order to become an expert at something. With that said, shouldn’t managers take on the coaching role to ensure the behavioral change of their talent?

What has been your experience with ways to leverage 360-degree feedback?

“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as is what direction we are moving.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes

When we think of revisiting the implementation of 360s, we want to consider the time needed to make meaningful behavior change, and for that change to be seen by others. We recommend that somewhere between 12 to 24 month intervals are most appropriate for repeating a 360-degree feedback process. This allows people to work through their development and action plans to create change.  For example, Envisia Learning Inc. provides a time series 360-degree feedback report that combines and summarizes results from the first and subsequent administrations of 360-degree feedback to show change in scores over a time period.

Of course, it is also highly recommended to periodically evaluate the impact of the participant’s goal setting and development plan progress.  For example, Envisia Learning Inc. has a goal evaluation system called ProgressPulse which can be administered at any time following coaching or training asks invited raters to evaluate progress on specific participant goals (i.e., whether they are improving, staying the same or even getting worse).  This feedback is combined into a brief report to help provide accountability and measure learning transfer.

Coach’s Critique: 

When thinking about when to repeat a 360-degree feedback assessment, it is important to consider a couple of issues before doing so. In my coaching practice, I have seen 360 sponsors that are quick to wanting to utilize the tool as a way to re-evaluate the participants progress.

It is a good idea to utilize a 360 again to track a participants progress with his or her development plan, however, there needs to be a realistic gauge at the time frame for behavioral change as well as sufficient sampling of behavioral change effort that people (raters) can notice.

In order for behavioral change to sustain and to be apparent in the eyes of others, participants need to commit to on-going deliberate practice of new habits. Frank Lally (2009) tested the number of days it takes for a behavior to become automatic, and found that depends on its complexity (eating habits take 65 days on average, exercise habits take 91 on average). This does not necessarily constitute a new skill or behavior as an expert.

Anders Erickson published research on the number of hours of practice it take to form a habit, and found that when individuals practice their new behaviors in a focused, structured, serious, and detailed way, it takes about 10,oooo hours to become an expert and unconsciously competent at a new behavior (Erickson, K.A., 2006). I will co-facilitate such research findings and on the topic “Clueless: Getting People to Successfully Change Behaviors” at the ASTD International Conference this Sunday, May 6th in Denver, Colorado.

So, we can gather that changing a habit and learning a new skill is not easy even with deliberate practice. So, before thinking about revisiting a repeat 360, they should consider a time gap in order for them to change their behavior and have sufficient change for it to be recognized by others.

What has been your experience with the time frame of when to do a repeat 360? Are there advantages and disadvantages of doing it sooner or later?