I got an interesting viewpoint on 360-degree feedback while I was doing a charity event this afternoon.
Today we opened our garden as part of the National Gardens Scheme which uses the event as a way to raise funds for MacMillan Cancer. Many people who came to visit our garden asked me how many hours I had worked to get it ready for the day, and mentioned how stressful they thought it would be.
Although I’ve been involved in helping friends with their open gardens for many years, this is only the second time we’ve taken part by opening ours to the public. In fact, when people were asking how much effort it had been to get ready, my answer was that it had taken very little extra effort. A little tidying up, some extra attention to the pots and taking the time to plant a few extra seedlings – and we were there. But this certainly wasn’t the case the first time around. Then it was stressful. Extremely tense. People were going to be looking at our garden and it had to be good. Would it be tidy enough, colourful enough, well-tended enough? The thought that people would be judging our work made us quite nervous.
There is a parallel with candidate for 360-degree feedback. We often find that the first time people go through the process, they are nervous about the results. They may feel uncomfortable with the idea that colleagues will be thinking about their performance and giving them feedback on what could be better. Mostly, when they get to it, they find the process extremely useful and in many cases, a confidence builder.
We found the same with our open garden. People liked what we had done and wanted advice and information on how to do similar things in theirs. Once we’d been through the process and realised how positive it can be to get an outside perspective, we had the extra time and energy to put into a new idea for this year’s garden. We combined recycling with garden and planted The Wellie Garden.
Once people get the idea that 360-degree feedback isn’t something to be nervous about, they can make changes based on their new awareness, and then have the mental bandwidth to add even more value to their roles.
Article by Vandy Massey
If you liked this post why not subscribe to the 'Consultants' feed via RSS, email or follow us on Twitter.