August 20; Pattern Recognition and Feedback In Monitoring People Performance
MANAGEMENT BY THE BOOK:
365 Daily Bible Verse &
One-Minute Management Lessons For The Busy Faithful

Chapter Eight: Communication; 20 August

Do not entertain an accusation against an elder

unless it is brought by two or three witnesses.

1 Timothy 5:19

360 Degree Evaluation

In this century Germany has given us World War 1, World War II, and the Multisource Assessment; a multi-rater feedback…

The German Army used this as an evaluation tool for their Officer Corps in WWII. (Wikipedia 2014 citing Fleenor & Prince, 1997)

Germany lost the Second World War, of course, but this control element lives on in every American organization. Human Resource–Managers (no, let’s not call them Nazis, please) now call it the 360 Degree Evaluation.

This instrument is a communication’s medium to measure personnel effectiveness. A 360 Evaluation gets input from those who encircle the target, or, rather, the evaluatee. The person in the center gets graded not just by his boss but also any staff who report to him and internal and external peers.   This is usually anonymous except for the appraisal from the boss.

The 360 Eval works best with Commitment, Confidentiality and Candor.

The boss; boss2; boss3; boss[infinity symbol] must be committed to getting feedback from all sources. The management team must actively support the concept of being in the center of accountability. He does this by submitting to the same humiliation of the nameless backstabbing as endured by the rest of the company. No one is exempted.

The long knives work only in darkness. The 360 system works only in guaranteed, anonymous privacy. Your Business Professor once had a manager who inadvertently disclosed the name of one of my direct reports who had made a number of petty criticisms of my superior management style. I was able to rise above the staffer’s snark, noblesse oblige and all that. But our relationship (which is the one word that describes management) was tainted somewhat because from that day until the subordinate left — I hated his guts.

(Yes, yes—I am working on that Christian Charity component…)

A 360 works when the boss is behind it and the content is nameless; this should encourage direct, honest opinions. I do a 360-type eval where my students get to grade Your Business Professor. The critiques are usually helpful with only the occasional “I like turtles.” (The students tell me this is a reference to a popular YouTube video and that the criticism is not a mockery. I don’t believe them.)

In the absence of any special form from HR, you might consider the following format to get feedback from your circle of tormentors,

To improve the effectiveness of this organization, the manager

[that would be you] should,

Keep doing this:

Stop doing this:

Start doing this:

The real value of the 360 is encouraging the organization and stakeholders to communicate with management. We get often get complaints from customers and there are probably some from our employees.

But what managers should be looking for is a pattern of behavior where company values are being violated. The boss must act on a repetition of a complaint from multiple sources. The pattern is what is important.

Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. 1 Timothy 5:19

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Printable copy of the 360-degree-Evaluation-for-Your-Business-Professor-3

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