Module 3 – Background
360-DEGREE FEEDBACK
Required Material
First, start out by viewing this short
introduction to 360-degree feedback:
Kunz, A. (2010). 360-degree feedback.
Info-Tech Research Group. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AySMxUlRCVs
Now take a look at this slightly more
detailed video from Dr. Maxim Sytch of the University of Michigan. Pay
special attention to how he relates 360 degree feedback to the Johari Window as
this will help you tie this material in with what you learned in Module 2:
Sytch, M. (2016). 360 degree feedback. Coursera https://www.coursera.org/learn/managing-talent/lecture/RIgEa/02-06-360-degree-feedback
Now read Chapters 1 and 2 of the following
book for a more thorough and detailed overview of the 306-degree feedback
process. The checklist on page 37 will be useful for the Case Assignment:
Taylor, S., Chappelow, C., & Fleenor, J. (2008). Leveraging
the Impact of 360-Degree Feedback.Hoboken, NJ, USA: Pfeiffer. [EBSCO
eBook Collection]
Finally, take a look at this highly comprehensive chapter that goes
into quite a bit of practical detail about the 360-degree process:
Carelli, A. O. (2010). Chapter 5: The
truth about 360° assessments. The Truth About Supervision: Coaching,
Teamwork, Interviewing, Appraisals, 360° Assessments, and Recognition.
Springfield: Charles C Thomas. [EBSCO eBook Collection]
The Vukotich (2014) article below is also
highly recommended but not required.
Optional Reading
Vukotich, G. (2014). 360° Feedback: Ready,
Fire, Aim-Issues With Improper Implementation. Performance Improvement, 53(1),
30-35.
Mukherjee, S. (2014). Chapter 10: 360
degree survey in coaching need assessment. Corporate Coaching: The
Essential Guide. New Delhi, India: Sage Publications Pvt. Ltd. [EBSCO
eBook Collection]
Discussion
360-Degree Survey Vendors
PreviousNext
While searching for free 360-degree
surveys, you probably came across quite a few webpages for vendors who will
charge a lot of money to use their surveys. Take a look at the webpages or
YouTube videos for some vendors, and choose one that sticks out to you the
most. This could be a vendor that inspires a lot of confidence, or a vendor
that does not seem to be reliable at all based on their promotional materials.
Share the link with your classmates and explain what makes this vendor stand
out. This first post should be within the first few days of the module.
For the second week of the module, if
you have been a part of a 360-degree process before, discuss your experiences
with your classmates. What went well and what went wrong in this process? What
concepts from the background readings were applicable to your own
experiences? If you’ve never been though a 360-degree process, try asking
a coworker such as your supervisor or someone from the human resource
department if they have any experience with 360 processes or if they are
considering implementing one in the near future.
Module 3 – Case
360-DEGREE FEEDBACK
Assignment Overview
Continuing on the themes of the Module 1
and 2 Case Assignments, for this module you will also be doing a
self-assessment as well as applying the concepts from the module to your own
organization. Make sure to thoroughly review the required background materials
before starting this assignment, as you need to apply concepts from readings
such as Carelli (2010) and Fleenor, et al. (2008) as part of this
assignment. Fleenor, et al.’s checklist on page 37 and the Carelli’s
checklist on page 175 are especially important for this assignment.
Case Assignment
This assignment has five sections. For each
section, the suggested length is one half to one full page, for a total length
of four to five pages not including the title page and references. You should
also make sure to cite Carelli (2010) and Fleenor, et al. (2008) multiple times
throughout the paper as well as any additional references that you find:
- Most 360-degree surveys are not free and in fact are very
expensive if you want to get a license to use them at your organization. However,
there are a few free sample 360-degree surveys out there. Do a search
on Google or other search engines using terms such as “free 360-degree
feedback survey.” Find two or three free surveys and choose one of
them that you think would be most applicable to your organization. Explain
the reasoning for your choice, and try to use criteria from the readings
such as the checklists from Carelli (2010, p. 175) and Fleenor, et al.
(2008, p. 37). - Now take the survey that you chose in your answer to Question 2
above. Fill out the survey as a self-evaluation – that is, use the survey
to evaluate your own leadership skills and other skills. Report the
results of your survey. Do you think the survey was useful? What areas for
improvement in your leadership skills did you find from using the survey? - As a next step, fill out the survey again but this time
evaluate your current supervisor or a previous supervisor that you worked
with. Report your results. Were the results fair to your supervisor? What
are the main areas for improvement for your supervisor based on your
results? - Now that you have taken the survey twice, what areas for
improvement would you make for it before using it again? Would you
change the wording of the questions? Any questions that you would
add? Use the concepts from Carelli (2010) and Fleenor, et al. (2008) as
well as your own experiences filling out the survey to assess the
usefulness of the survey that you took. - Finally, take a look at pages 153-155 of Carelli (2010) where
she discusses pitfalls and potential biases of a 360-degree survey. Which
pitfalls do you think would apply to your organization and the leaders you
work with? How might you overcome these pitfalls if you were to lead a
360-degree survey process in your organization?
Assignment Expectations
- Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps
listed in the instructions - Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don’t go off
on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background
materials - List supporting references and cite sources in proper format
- Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization,
grammar, and spelling). - Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See
the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper,
including pages 13-14 on in-text citations.
Module 3 – SLP
360-DEGREE FEEDBACK
For this assignment you will be applying
the concepts from the background readings to some specific scenarios that you
might face if you were a leadership development coach. Make sure to thoroughly
review Carelli (2010) and Fleenor, et al. (2008) before starting on this
assignment.
For each of the scenarios below, use at
least one reference from the required readings to answer the specific question.
Use your knowledge of the background readings to diagnose each scenario in
terms of what went wrong and what could have been done differently. Your paper
should be 2-3 pages in length:
- An organization decides that they don’t want to spend the large
amount of money to use a 360-degree survey from an established vendor and
instead decides to develop their own survey. An employee in the human
resource department is asked to create a list of 50 questions about
different areas of leadership performance. Two of the senior managers look
at the questions briefly and then send out the survey as part of a
360-degree process. Once the results come in, there is no rhyme or reason
to the results. For example, one top performing leader in the organization
gets perfect performance scores from some employees and very negative
scores from other employees. Management is not sure if the results from
the survey can be trusted or not. - A unit in one organization is having a lot of performance
issues and senior management is not sure of the reasons for this. They
don’t want to fire any employees but they do think some of the supervisors
need to improve their leadership skills. The survey is sent to five
employees, which includes two supervisors and three direct reports. They
are told that the survey will be anonymous but the results of each survey
will be shared with all five employees – only the names will be removed
from each survey but they will all be able to see the evaluation scores on
each question. When senior management sees the survey results, they find
that all five employees received almost perfect scores and no useful
information from the surveys can be found. - A software company is concerned that they are losing market
share to their competitors and that their software is not as high in
quality as it used to be. In an effort to improve their competitiveness,
they decide to use a 360-degree survey process to identify areas for
improvement in leadership skills among their top supervisors in their
software design department. After searching through a few different
360-degree instruments offered by different vendors, they find a survey
that focuses on communication and teamwork skills. The process seems to go
very well as supervisors who score low on communication or teamwork agree
to go through training to improve these skills. One year later the
360-degree process is repeated and most supervisors show greatly improved
communication and teamwork skills. However, the quality of the company’s
software does not seem to have improved at all in spite of the
improvements in communication and teamwork.
SLP Assignment Expectations
- Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps
listed in the instructions - Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don’t go off
on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background
materials - List supporting references and cite sources in proper format
- Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization,
grammar, and spelling). - Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See
the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper,
including pages 13-14 on in-text citations.
