360 Success, conducting verbal 360° feedback
What is verbal 360° feedback?
Verbal 360° feedback is a process whereby feedback from the people working with a manager is gathered verbally through interviews, and collated to understand how their leadership competencies and behaviors are perceived, with the aim to identify strengths as well as areas for improvement.
Unlike usual 360° feedback questionnaires, the verbal 360° collects feedback from individual interviews with selected people the manager works with.
Thanks to this interview-based methodology, the feedbacks are much more qualitative and specific. During the interviews, the coach asks for examples of observed behaviors as a way to illustrate the feedback and to make it easier to understand. It is therefore easier to translate it into development action.
When does a verbal 360 help?
Verbal 360° feedback is particularly valuable in following contexts:
- For senior people : senior leaders may welcome not being evaluated by a tool but by someone. They enjoy receiving verbal feedback on the perceptions they generate rather than reading an impersonal and numerical computer-generated report.
- For sensitive cases or where resistance is to be anticipated: being able to share specific examples of situations where their leadership behaviors were not optimal often makes it easier to accept difficult messages.
- Prior to a coaching. By definition, coaching is a highly qualitative process and starting a coaching engagement with verbal 360° is a smooth way to take stock of the areas relevant to the coaching needs. Using a 360° feedback tool would be more comprehensive, more quantitative, but this is not necessarily needed at the beginnning od a coaching engagement.
360° verbal: how does it work?
The process is quite simple: interviewees are identified by the leader or manager completing their verbal 360°. We will refer to him/her here as being the participant.
A list of usually 6 to 10 interviewees, including boss, direct reports, colleagues, peers, etc. An interview is conducted with each of these feedback givers.
The aim of each interview is to identify the participant's strengths and areas for improvement in terms of leadership competencies. These interviews are held confidential.
After completion of interviews, the coach prepares a a synthesis which aggregates views of feedback givers.
This summary is then shared with the participant duringa feedback session to enable them to understand how their leadership is perceived and what their levers for improvement are.
As an outcome of this feedback session, the participant has identified the actions to be implemented to further develop their leadership and impact in a relevant way.
It may also be the starting point of a coaching engagement to help the participant implement the planned actions over a longer period.
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