For technical reasons, I’ve spent this week being less than usually productive – but as a result, my effectiveness will definitely increase in future. I realised a few days ago that there are some parallels between this and the 360-degree feedback process.
My laptop has been gradually developing some annoying quirks. They’ve started to reach the point where my work is being affected and worryingly, backups were becoming problematic. When finally, the online backup process ground to a halt completely, something had to be done. Working without regular backups is just not smart and like just about everyone, I’ve been bitten by that at some point in the past.
Onto the support line and an hour or so later, the verdict was that my machine was just too cluttered. Time for a major clean up and clear out. And so the archiving began. As I worked through files and emails, the fact that some of them date back 6 years brought home the fact that over time, stuff builds up. It’s a gradual process so we don’t notice it, but eventually, like every bad habit, it makes itself felt.
The only way to avoid this is to develop good habits. There’s always going to be some area which could be better. With my laptop, there were signs that my bad habits were taking their toll. Small ones, admittedly, but they were there and if I’d taken the time to deal with them earlier, I could have been more productive.
We don’t always recognise the signs that we’ve developed some unhelpful habits, or that we’ve got areas of behaviour that could be improved. That’s where 360-degree feedback is so effective. It’s the early warning sign that can tell you where you might want to develop some better habits. As a diagnostic tool, 360-degree feedback has the advantages of being practical, effective and multifaceted. It provides information about areas which, if left unchanged, could have a serious impact on your performance over time, as well as having an impact on those around you.
Next time you’re thinking about conducting 360-degree feedback in your organisation, remember what happens to a computer when it’s allowed to just run on with no-one paying attention to the housekeeping.
Article by Vandy Massey
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