How to go 360º and Not Wind Up in the Same Place
Using 360º Feedback to Develop Executives
Bertram C. Edelstein, Ph.D. & Peggy Hanley, M.B.A.,
The Edelstein Group
(Executive Overview)
The Need to Know Where One Stands
360º workplace feedback is in good currency. Companies can't seem to find enough applications for it, and executives can't seem to get enough feedback
concerning performance and impact in the workplace. Can you blame them? Organizations make it difficult for executives to obtain a clear, accurate picture
concerning their impact and performance. However, if 360º feedback is to prove more than a fad, corporations must realize tangible benefits and executives
must experience gains in capacity and effectiveness as they work in ever more competitive business environments.
In order to derive the full value from 360º workplace feedback, corporations must possess a clear understanding of the nature of this tool, as well as the problems it can and cannot solve. Moreover, purveyors of 360º instruments must refrain from proffering 360º feedback as a panacea for what ails corporate America. Absent such restraint and realistic expectations, the excitement generated by 360º workplace feedback will undoubtedly be replaced by disappointment and cynicism. This article intends to deepen understanding of 360º feedback and to distinguish between its use for assessment versus development purposes. The article is based upon the results of a recent and past study analyzing the impact of an executive development program utilizing 360º workplace feedback and the experience gained by using 360º workplace feedback within the context of executive coaching for the past twelve years. Key components and the active agents of executive coaching are described.
The Conceptual Underpinnings of 360º
Feedback A Glimpse into the Future through Virtual Reality
I have often wondered about the contribution Virtual Reality technology could make to people's efforts to stop smoking cigarettes. What would be the effect
if a smoker was connected to a Virtual Reality device capable of recreating an in-the-bones, live experience of emphysema? - a disease which may lie far off in
the future of the young smoker. Would the smoker be so impacted today that the mere thought of smoking would prove so noxious that actually smoking would be
impossible? The power of this application of Virtual Reality resides in its ability to shift almost certain future consequences into the present. In so doing,
the smoker would be confronted with future consequences at a point in time where changes in smoking behavior may yield a different result.
In much the same way, 360º workplace feedback presents executives with information today they would otherwise not be made aware of until some point in the future. Typically, this would occur when the executive's problematic management behavior has reached a critical mass and the company can no longer afford to shield the executive from his or her impact. Thus, as in the above example, when it was the cigarette smoker's future experience of emphysema that was shifted into the present through Virtual Reality, with 360º workplace feedback it is the future impact of the executive's current management behavior which the executive is made aware of today. 360º workplace side-steps and over-rides the organization's tendency to keep important performance related feedback from the executive - particularly as it pertains to the impact his or her management behavior has on the organization. Argyris describes the organization's automatic response to threatening feedback as covering up, being civilized or easing into the problem. He suggests that frequently people wait too long before conveying a problem. The recipient of the feedback responds to the negative affect and feels the other person is trying to hurt him. Alternatively, if people subtly try to convey a problem, the message may be unclear and its ambiguity perceived as a game of sorts, not to be discussed, and Argyris suggests, as is the case with all face saving games, they are undiscussable and their undiscussability is undisscussable.
Holding Up The Mirror
(Confronting Organizational Perceptions)
360º workplace feedback essentially circumnavigates the company's distortion-packed, convoluted, performance feedback mechanisms. It is the organization's
current experience with executives, experienced by the executive today. This effectively short circuits the organization's tendency to not provide executives
with honest feedback until some future point when the company can no longer afford to keep the feedback from them, when it is often too late to do anything about it.
360º workplace feedback synthetically provides the long-lost feedback loop executives need to be able to adjust their management behavior, learn and grow.
360º workplace feedback, by going out into the organization and soliciting input (usually through an independent third-party to ensure anonymity), conveys
feedback to the executive that will eventually be brought to the executive's attention, but it happens sooner than it would otherwise, and hopefully soon enough
that enough time remains on the clock to modify management behavior and perceptions.
Essentially, 360º workplace feedback contravenes the natural organization process of spinning and managing information as it moves up the organization ladder. Only when an issue or problem becomes acute is it surfaced and brought to the executive's attention. By then it is too late; by then final judgments about the executive's performance and value to the company have been made - the verdict is in.
To be certain, discussions about executive performance and impact do go on. Out of the executive's earshot conversations are taking place and an organizational opinion about the executive's value and impact is being formed. The organization is actively evaluating executive performance. Executives possess only a vague sense of what they are doing, both right and wrong, and are short on specifics about what needs to be done to make things better.
Management Behavior Risk Appraisal
Executives are accustomed to yearly physicals. This 360º head-to-toe review of the body generates feedback concerning key bio-markers including cholesterol,
blood pressure, PSA count, and heart rate. The results reflect the executive's current physical state and provide the point of departure for improving physical
health. Most importantly, the power of these so-called Health Risk Appraisals lies in the fact that they make executives aware of problems before they become
acute and when the executive's behavior can alter the course of the disease process and its outcome.
360º workplace feedback is similar. It is a 360º review of the executive's management behavior and impact in the workplace. The 360º review generates feedback concerning key work-markers, including the ability to develop a team, leverage oneself through others, deal with performance problems, handle ambiguity, etc. The results of this assessment also provide the point of departure for improving executive effectiveness. This “Work-Risk Appraisal” makes executives aware of the impact of their management behavior at a point in time when the verdict has not been decided and when changes in executives' management behavior can alter the outcome.
Stated another way, 360º workplace feedback makes executives aware of their reflexive management behaviors or their default settings. Left to their own devices, without a conscious override, and particularly under stress, 360º workplace feedback describes how executives respond to people and situations. 360º surveys reveal what is most characteristic about the executive. Furthermore, they yield some of the most valid information about executive behavior since the information is empirically derived and collected from a cross-section of observers and consumers of the executive's management behavior.
Differentiating Between Assessment and Development
As organizational psychologists and organization development specialists, we have taken the art and science of assessing and describing management behavior to
its limits. There are more management grids than we know what to do with and more assessment instruments than mutual funds. Less well developed are technologies
which incorporate and utilize assessment as the starting point for executive development.
All too often executive assessment is an end in itself. Executives are assessed and then left to their own devices to figure out what to do next. Or, when a development plan is articulated, there is little support in implementing it, and follow-up is usually non-existent. Knowing how difficult it is to modify management or any other kind of behavior, this is at best naÔve, and at worst, irresponsible. What is needed is a development process which takes into account how executives learn and which guides the executive as he or she begins to come to grips with the assessment and deal with the inevitable personal and organizational resistance to change.
Executive Coaching & 360º Feedback - The Vehicle for Development
Once upon a time only professional athletes had coaches. It has always been expected that athletes needed and benefited from coaching. For an executive to ask for
help, however, was tantamount to admitting weakness and almost certain to be accompanied by derision and stigmatization. Today, not only is it de rigueur to have
a coach, it is also a status symbol. While coaching has become ubiquitous of late, the rigor of such a relationship varies widely. Some coaches focus on work
life balance, spiritual development or time management and prioritization.
Executive coaching has done for executive development in the 90's what stress management did for anxiety in the 1980's. By reframing the issue it has become acceptable to ask for and accept help. While most people felt uncomfortable admitting to feeling anxious (“that's neurotic”), they were willing to talk about feeling stressed (“it's normal, everyone feels this way!”). Feeling stressed-out was worn like a badge of courage by those who equated exhaustion and the organization's extraction of a pound of flesh with productivity and effectiveness.
Indeed this has been a positive development because while the quality control and essence of coaching may be problematic, it is within the context of an organizationally supported coaching relationship that the development power of 360º feedback is realized. The coaching process leverages a 360º survey (essentially a diagnostic tool) into a developmental experience. Within a coaching relationship, 360º workplace feedback is the point of departure on a journey whose goal is increased executive capacity and an expanded repertoire of management behaviors. It is through the coaching relationship that the executive comes to grips with the workplace feedback, understands when and where reflexes are and are not appropriate to the task at hand, and defines a plan which increases present-day effectiveness and prepares the executive to take his/her game to the next level.
For the past twelve years we have been conducting executive coaching via a psychologically-based model, equally grounded in the exigencies of the workplace, that incorporates 360º workplace feedback. We have now studied the impact of our executive coaching model on two large client systems and have experience with over 2,000 participants. The results of the initial study were previously reported and we recently completed a second study with the top executives from one of the five largest managed health care companies in the United States.
Both our studies indicate there are several key dimensions and active agents which, when present, make executive coaching and 360º workplace feedback effective. These are: the relationship, the feedback, and the follow-through.
The Relationship
The sine qua non of executive coaching and development is the relationship between executive and coach. This is so obvious that it is easy to overlook its
importance. However, in many supposedly “coaching/developmental” relationships the parameters of the coaching relationship are not spelled out. Is the coach
working for the executive? Is the coach working for the executive's boss? Or, is the coach working for the company? If, at the outset, these are not specified,
the executive coaching process is likely to yield a disappointing result. When the coach and the executive are jointly responsible to the organization for fostering
development and maintaining accountability for follow through, the relationship is grounded in jointly shared objectives.
Equally obvious is that it is a one-to-one relationship. In fact, this is the most distinguishing characteristic of executive coaching. Moreover, once having accepted the one-to-one model as legitimate and suitable for executive development, the executive coach must recognize and bring to bear different skills than those required by platform speakers or classroom trainers. The executive coaching relationship has therapeutic/counseling overtones and it is incumbent upon the coach to understand and appreciate the “psychological” issues of transference/counter-transference, psychological defenses and confidentiality, among others, and the executive coach must be able to deal with these during the coaching process. Maybe most important of all is the ability to form a relationship and an alliance with the executive. The relationship is the vehicle in which and through which executive coaching occurs. The coach must be skilled at discerning when to confront the executive's resistance and knowledgeable about the level of therapeutic support needed to encourage forward movement despite setbacks.
Understanding the Executive within a Larger Personal and Business Context
Our experience teaches that coach and executive must feel they are working side-by-side and share the same ultimate objective: helping the executive increase
capacity and be effective in a wider range of business situations. Essential to this occurring is the executive's belief that the coach understands the personal and
business world in which he or she operates. This promotes the development of a working alliance and builds trust.
For example: John is the CEO of a high technology start-up. He formed the company and took it public. After a long career in a multi-national company as a senior executive, he was finally at the helm. John retained a coach after complaints that he was letting his Senior Vice Presidents run amok, and was failing to hold them accountable for their territorial behavior. Only upon exploring his reticence to take a tough stand with his staff did key information emerge.
Shortly after the IPO, a large order was lost, which significantly impacted first quarter earnings. John was castigated by several large investors and personally devastated at the consequences of this loss, which was mainly outside of his control. His ethics were questioned and the publicity was exquisitely painful to one more familiar with the less public role experienced in his former firm. Depressed about this turn of events, John had stopped intervening with his top team thereafter, since he doubted his own judgement and feared once again leading the company astray. Working through these feelings led to his getting astride the CEO horse again and forcing himself to tackle the start-up's problems and develop his team and managers.
Understanding the executive as a person promotes and cultivates the coaching relationship. We have found that a review of the executive's family of origin and work history fosters the development of the alliance and, at the same time, helps the executive gain an appreciation for the antecedents of reflexive management behavior. This framework of understanding lays important groundwork and pays dividends in the form of less defensiveness and greater ownership of the 360º workplace feedback. It also increases trust since the executive feels that the coach really understands what the executive is up against.
For example: Victoria, a staff vice president in a Fortune 100 company, described her “only child” experience as a very lonely existence. Her parents were much older and her after school activities consisted of exploring the family's large ranch on horseback. Her 360 feedback revealed that she did not seem to enter into discussions readily with the CEO and other senior executives, and that “she seems to stand outside the group.” Victoria was struck with the realization, “I never learned to join a group. I've always been rewarded for independence and now at this level I have to be part of the team. I don't know the rules of the game.”
We query family of origin matters to identify what the executive learned to do to get his/her needs met, what behaviors were learned from key role models, and in what ways the executive may be over or under compensating for things he/she did or did not get in the past. Kaplan also suggests that executives find new learnings in giving their family history. Re-telling personal history allows for reflection and a new understanding of subconscious motives playing out in the workplace. Questions concerning work history assess the portfolio of the executive's experience, the types of corporate cultures worked in, where the executive has been most/least effective, what good and bad habits has the executive learned from others along the way, particularly during the initial, most formative years of the executive's career.
The coach's understanding of the executive's and the company's business objectives, and the ability to frame the executive's coaching experience as increasing the executive's capability of meeting these objectives, is of central importance. If not, executive coaching is viewed as not supporting the company's core business objectives and, at its worst, executive coaching is viewed as “charm school.” Thus, the ideal executive coach possesses business, organization development and psychological knowledge and skills.
The Feedback
We have found that the type and quality of the 360º workplace feedback directly impacts the outcome of the executive coaching process. We have found that
numbers alone, which attempt to quantify executive impact and performance, do not generate sufficient affect necessary to fuel the management behavior change process.
Numbers are too easily intellectualized, rationalized and repressed. Thus, those 360º workplace feedback processes that are primarily quantitative in nature,
do not generate a compelling cause for action.
In the absence of a compelling need to change, executives and corporations alike, keep doing what has seemingly worked so well for them in the past. Only when executives are convinced that the accomplishment of important goals is jeopardized by current management behavior, will they consider modifying how they conduct business and embark on the very difficult process of management behavior change.
We have found that quantitative based 360º feedback is suited for assessment of executive performance, while narrative based 360º feedback is suited for executive development. Quantitative feedback, by itself, does not generate enough cognitive dissonance, the gap between how the executive views him or herself and how others view the executive. Dissonance is the necessary precursor to change.
In each of our studies we learned that motivation for change is one of the most important variables in determining a successful coaching outcome. In some cases executives come to coaching with some degree of readiness to learn. In other cases, the narrative based 360º feedback grabs the executive, creates the requisite dissonance, and drives the change/development process. Whatever its source, in the absence of motivation and the cause for action, executives will go through the motions of coaching to satisfy the company, but will lack motivation to learn and grow.
For example: A brilliant, young principal research engineer was his company's major asset in the design of new technology. His flaw was the lack of concern over cycle time in an industry where weeks determined market success as prices were eroding by the day. While forced into a 360 coaching process by the CEO, Chris bemoaned the firm's demands for bringing his concepts to market more rapidly and repeatedly referenced his previous employer's support of “knowledge for knowledge sake.” Chris cancelled or failed to appear for scheduled meetings with the coach. After consulting with the Human Resource vice president, Chris was deemed a “drop out” and the company gave him six months to produce or get out.
The Voices of Coworkers: The Power of Narrative Feedback
What makes narrative feedback so compelling? We have learned that it is this feedback's ability to paint a vivid image of the executive's impact in the workplace.
An analog is the difference between learning that your cholesterol level is 350 versus seeing a color picture of a partially occluded coronary artery or experiencing
angina. The same holds true with 360º narrative feedback pertaining to management behavior. Which do you think would be more impactful for the executive to
hear: A) the executive obtained a 2.5 out of 5 on a scale measuring “Delegation” versus B) the executive learning from several narrative comments that
people think he does not trust others and keeps important, high profile projects to himself? The latter not only generates the “cause for action,” but
inherent in the feedback are the seeds of the Development Plan. It is easier to define “next steps” from the narrative remarks, while the quantitative
feedback does not readily show the way.
The Written Plan
We have learned there is a strong positive correlation between the executive's generation of a written Development Plan and successful outcome to the executive
coaching. Writing a Development Plan takes time and thought and signals motivation and intent to do something with the feedback. Essentially, the process of
generating the Development Plan increases the executive's motivation to change.
We have found it is useful to provide executives with examples of real Development Plans. Examples may be drawn from different industries and represent different styles and approaches to constructing such a plan. Some of the Development Plans have a quantitative feel and are produced on spreadsheets, while others are narrative with the executive putting into words the main messages derived from the workplace feedback and what the executive intends to do about it in both his or her personal and work life. Whether quantitative or narrative it is important that the Development Plan contain dates/milestones for completion.
Informing the Supervisor/Staff Group
Most often the executive cannot implement the plan by him or herself. The executive's management behavior is continually being shaped by the complex systems in
which he or she operates (e.g., corporate culture, incentive systems, organization communication and structure, etc.). The more components of the system that
can be brought into play and be made to support the executive's Development Plan, the greater the likelihood for a positive outcome.
Gaining the buy-in and support of the executive's supervisor is key. If the supervisor understands and knows what he or she needs to do in order to support the Development Plan, it increases the probability the Plan will be put into practice.
For example: Phil, a Regional Vice President in Sales and Marketing was a “fair haired boy.” At 32, he conquered many hurdles and as he described to his coach, “I just did what came naturally. It was never hard until I took this job.” A gifted athlete, his prowess on the greens was legendary. The CEO routinely asked for his presence at charity golf events, inviting him to join the CEO's foursome. But passion and vision were absent from his repertoire and their absence was noticed by employees. “He is on fire with clients but not with us.” In a three way meeting with his boss, the regional president, he finally got the message. “You've disappointed me. I thought you could do better. Your team notices you're only going through the motions and that impacts their morale.” After this meeting, Phil commented to his coach, ”No one has ever said they were disappointed in me! I was always the star. What a wake-up call. I can't hide out anymore.”
Additionally, we have found that sharing the Development Plan with the executive's staff group is also important. Surveying the participant's staff group as part of the 360º workplace feedback process raises expectations, and the staff group is naturally looking to see or experience something different. A meeting wherein the executive communicates what was heard and what the executive plans to do about it, closes the loop and enlists the staff group's support in implementing the Development Plan.
The Follow-Through
Modifying one's golf swing is no mean feat. Modifying management behavior is equally as difficult. In sports, participants receive immediate performance feedback.
In the work world, the opposite is true. The combination of people withholding their true opinions of the executive's performance and the fact that the outcome of
decisions is typically not known for a long time, makes it hard to know what is and is not working and what modifications in management behavior would yield a better
result. Most 360-degree assessment ends with the manager developing an action plan incorporating their personal summary of the strengths and weaknesses and what they
will do specifically to turn things around. But as Kaplan points out, they are rarely provided assistance on the job with follow through. As he suggests, “good
intentions are not enough.” The manager must have a structure of support, expert help and be held accountable.
Thus, it is unrealistic to expect that the executive will be able to put into practice what has been learned after only one lesson. Intuitively we know this is not possible and that one-session learning is not adequate to modify long-standing patterns of executive behavior. Our experience reinforces this intuition. Executives need to be able to practice management behavior and return to the coach to discuss the executive's experience with the plan, which is then modified accordingly. Only when the new management behavior is practiced over time and across situations will the executive gain confidence in the new management behavior and make it a permanent addition to his/her repertoire.
We have found that the coaching must be extended over a period of time to allow for both practice and a second followup survey. The latter enables the executive to determine whether the modifications to management behavior are having the desired impact. If the 360º workplace survey is conducted without the followup and follow-through, it is really an assessment process only and the company should be realistic about its expectations for management behavior change and development.
Key tasks for the coach
Managing the dissonance
The moment the executive receives his/her 360º workplace feedback is always difficult. It is at this moment that the executive becomes acutely aware of any
gap between his/her ideal and real self. The wider the gap, the greater the dissonance and pain. This pain is the source of motivation the executive draws upon to
modify management behavior. However, the pain also causes the executive's defense mechanisms to kick-in in order to blunt the feedback and modulate the pain. For
example, executives say: “this can't possibly be true” - Denial, or “the people who are giving me this feedback are all screwed up” - Projection,
or “I have had to implement a lot of changes which people don't like” - Rationalization, or “this survey is not valid because the participants represent
a biased selection rather than a stratified random sample” - Intellectualization, or “I heard the feedback but I didn't pay much attention to it and
an't remember what was said” - Repression.
It is key for the coach to help the executive work through the painful feelings generated by the 360º workplace feedback and not let him/her off the hook from coming to grips with the main messages from the workplace feedback. Therefore, it is essential for the coach to assess if the executive is overwhelmed by the feedback and has shut down, or whether the executive has been impacted but still able to constructively respond to what has been heard. The coach must encourage the executive to express his/her emotional reaction to the feedback so that the executive's reaction to the feedback may be ascertained.
Finally, it is critical that the coach hears from the executive in a clear, unequivocal voice, what portion of the feedback he/she is willing to own and what he/she wishes to work on because it will increase his/her capabilities. It is easy to assume that the executive is as concerned about the feedback as the coach, and automatically wants to do something about it. Oftentimes, this is not the case and the executive does not really buy-in at all and is making liberal use of one or more of the aforementioned psychological defenses. Until the matter of feedback ownership is resolved, executive coaching cannot move from the assessment to development phase.
Developing a Meaningful Context
Without meaning there is despair. After listening to a full dose of negative 360º workplace feedback it is easy for the executive to feel that all's lost and
to throw in the towel. In fact, after listening to the feedback it's common for executives to feel unappreciated and misunderstood by their companies. Thus, a
primary task for the coach is to help the executive place the feedback within a larger context and to understand the full and deep meaning of the feedback. The
coach must communicate that, in the midst of all the pain, there is an important lesson to be learned. The coach must help the executive define the lesson and
view his/her current predicament as an opportunity to grow.
This is a complex task. At this juncture, the coach must be prepared to weave together into a meaningful whole all that's known about the executive's personal and work history, the company's lifecycle, culture and current business factors. It is then that the coach can help the executive crystallize the lessons the environment is challenging him/her to learn which, in turn, generates hope and the motivation to learn.
The coach must help the executive understand which aspect(s) of his/her management behavior is out of sync with the workplace (and maybe other parts of the executive's life, too). For example, the executive may have recently been promoted to a top management position, which requires even greater measures of communication, leadership and vision sharing. This may be a stretch for the otherwise analytical and reserved executive who, under the stress of the new position, may pull-in even more. The executive must see how adding these skills will increase his/her value to the company. Additional motivation would be generated if the executive believed that adding these skills would increase his/her value as a person, as well.
It is the gap between the executive's reflexes, or what has worked in the past, and what new muscles or capabilities must be cultivated to work effectively today and tomorrow, that provides the engine for change . It's the gap that presents the executive an opportunity for growth. It's the coach who frames the closing of the gap as a learning opportunity and joins with the executive in generating and implementing a plan that does just that.
Does Executive Coaching Work?
There are no miracle cures. Moreover, quantifying management behavior change and development and being able to attribute change to executive coaching is
difficult indeed. With so many variables at play and almost no ability to control them, it is practically impossible to utilize a rigorous experimental design.
What may be more important, however, is to determine whether or not executive coaching participants feel the process has been worthwhile and whether they believe
development and increase in capacity has occurred as a result. Executives, stingy with their time, are usually tough critics of activities that require significant
amounts of it and expect a good return on their investment.
In our first study, and then again now, we studied two large client systems to conduct an evaluation of an executive coaching process. The former study was conducted with a leading developer and manufacturer of specialty materials used in the electronics, high tech, automotive and related industries; the recent study was performed at one of this country's five largest managed health care companies. In both studies, we queried respondents about 3 general issues:
- Does the executive coaching process generate valuable management behavior change?
- What kinds of changes does this process typically produce?
- What activities in this process contribute the most to learning change?
In the first study, approximately 95 executives participated in the executive coaching process and 56 participated in our study. In the second study, approximately 80 executives participated in the executive coaching process, but only 16 participated in the study.
In both studies, executives were asked: How valuable was the executive coaching process in your professional development? Although the metrics employed in each study were somewhat different, in both studies more than 35% of the respondents indicated executive coaching had been either “valuable” or “extremely valuable.”
In both studies executives were asked: Do you believe you made changes in your management behavior as a result of your participation in the executive coaching process? Again, while the metrics were somewhat different in the first and second study, in both studies more than 60% of the respondents indicated they thought they had made “consistent change” in their actions.
In both studies, executives were asked: Overall, how do you rate the impact executive coaching seemed to have had on participants you have observed? In the first study, respondents indicated that 67% of all executive coaching participants demonstrated from at least “Occasional” to “Significant” management behavior changes. In the second study, respondents indicated that 82% of all executive coaching participants demonstrated from at least “Occasional” to “Significant” management behavior changes. In both studies, only about 10% reported “no changes.”
In both studies, executives were asked: How would you compare your executive coaching experience to other forms of development in similar topics (management and interpersonal effectiveness)? In the first study, a majority of the respondents indicated that the executive coaching process was either “extremely valuable” or “very valuable” and more valuable, on average, than the learning from internal coaching or from external workshops and seminars. In the second study, 50% of the respondents indicated the executive coaching process was of greater value than other programs.
In the second study executives were asked: In observing others who have been coached, how much change have you seen produced in the person who seemed to have gotten the most out of coaching? 19% said they had observed “consistent, significant change.” 38% said they had observed “consistent change.” And 43% said they had observed “occasional change.”
In our second study, when executives were asked: How much change resulted from the person who got the least out of coaching? 23% reported “no change.” 39% reported “change that faded over time.” And 38% reported “occasional change.”
In both studies, executives were asked: What contributed most to your learning? Ranked as most important were the “360º workplace feedback” and “generating a written Development Plan.”
Finally, in the second study, executives were asked: What value do these changes have for the company? Can you point to a specific way in which the company benefited from your participation in the coaching process?
Narrative comments from participants included:
- By becoming a better manager and solidifying my own philosophy on what my area is and the value it brings to the company, it has allowed me to assume a more strategic role.
- Since I get along better with people, they are more open to my ideas.
- I focus more on my peers and am more team-oriented.
- I am more consistent in my approach to management and expectations are more realistic.
- I now understand what it takes to make the matrixed organization, in which so many of us operate, work.
Summary
Learning is a core ability that determines which executives remain vital and are long distance leaders. In this era of high velocity growth probably nothing is
more important than learning how to keep learning and disseminating to others what has been learned. Already changes in organization structures and cultures have
made many management behaviors obsolete. Executives, now working in flattened organizations, cannot rely on position power to get things done. Persuasion skills,
working collaboratively across functional silos, and leading and participating in the full spectrum of work groups, are required to be effective.
As indicated by our experience in the trenches and the results of our two studies, 360º workplace feedback can make an important contribution to executive learning by providing executives an accurate picture of impact and contribution to the workplace. However, 360º workplace feedback reflects past management behavior. If development is the objective, then the future desired end-state must be visualized, a written Development Plan must be generated, and the executive must be coached and supported in implementing the plan. The real payback from 360º workplace feedback is obtained by working through the feedback and helping the executive expand his or her repertoire of management behavior.
On the one hand, we are encouraged by the data generated by our studies. Under the right conditions and exposed to a process that achieves a “threshold of intensity,” executives can be developed and management behavior modified. On the other hand, however, the results indicate that some participants did not think they or others' management behavior improved as a consequence of the coaching, or, if it did, the change was temporary and followed by a return to business as usual. What accounts for this? We believe that a key determinant of executive coaching success is whether the participant is motivated to learn and wants to be coached. This is especially important to consider at a time when we seem to have come full circle and executive coaching has become de rigueur. Now not having a coach may be a stigma or a sign that the company does not believe the executive is worth the investment.
While the 360º workplace feedback can and does generate motivation to learn and modify management behavior (especially when there is significant disparity between the executive's self-appraisal and appraisal by others), if there's not an openness to learning and recognition that things need to be done differently in the future than they have been done in the past, then coaching will probably yield a disappointing result. Question: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Just one, but the light bulb must want to change! Before nominating executives for executive coaching this question should be asked and answered to ensure that precious development resources are being properly deployed.
Selected Bibliography
Argyris, C., Making the undiscussible and it undiscussibility discussible, Unpublished paper, Harvard University.
Argyris, C., Skilled incompetence, Harvard Business Review, September-October 1986.
Edelstein, B. C. & Armstrong, D. J., “A model for executive development,” Human Resource Planning, 1993, Vol. 16, No. 4, 51-68.
Kanter, R. M., When giants learn to dance, Simon & Schuster, 1990.
Kaplan, R., Drath. W., & Kafodimas, J., Beyond Ambition, Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 1991.
Neilsen, E. R. & Gypen, J., The subordinate's predicament, Harvard Business Review, September-October 1979, 133-143.
Ulrich, D., Jick, T., & VonGlinow, T., High impact learning: building and diffusing learning capability, Organizational Dynamics, Autumn, 1993.
Bertram C. Edelstein, Ph.D. & Peggy Hanley, M.B.A.
Journal Article
©1998, Bertram C. Edelstein, Ph.D. & Peggy Hanley, M.B.A.
This document may not be reproduced without the express written consent of the authors.
Home | Consulting Programs | About Us | Principals of the Firm | Locate & Contact Us | Article: A Model... | Article: 360º' Feedback