Feedback is traditionally a top-down affair. Managers and team leaders provide helpful insights on the performance of those reporting to them.
Progressive organisations sometimes try to arrange upward feedback too. The flow direction reverses, and staff comment on their boss’s effectiveness and performance.
From that it is a short step to 360-degree feedback, where feedback flies in all directions—upwards, downwards, and from side to side, from staff, volunteers, service users, funders, suppliers and anyone else anyone can think of.
It’s all potentially powerful stuff, a great way to increase self-awareness, identify and build on strengths, manage weaknesses and generally improve performance and job satisfaction.
Such feedback is not appropriate to quick sessions or workshops. A proper 360-degree appraisal is something to plan carefully, designed around individuals and organisational purpose, and to deliver with skills and thoughtfully analysed.
The good news is that a new version of feedback lends itself very well to workshop sessions. Designed by Marshall Goldsmith, it doesn’t dwell on the past but on the future. It’s called feedforward and can result in fast and energetic sessions full of useful insights, and fun.
