Would You Want To Know?

Would you want to know what people really thought about you? What they thought the first time they met you and how their opinion has changed over time. How they feel about you as an employee, a friend, a family member, a boss.

These questions form part of a 360 survey and the purpose is to get an honest opinion from a cross-section of people who know you and use the results in your personal development.

Stevie asks all of the staff at KDS to undertake a survey and of course he himself has done one. This morning Stevie was mentoring a businesswoman and the results of her 360 formed the basis for the session.

The results were not shocking in any way but they highlighted that there are 3 main areas that need improvement – People strategy, Communication Strategy and Ability to lead teams.

The key to the survey is to approach it with the right frame of mind, to understand that it’s about learning and to ensure that you listen to what people have said and act on the results. The other point to remember is that you cannot simply look at the results once you must look over them regularly to ensure you do not fall into bad habits!

Stevie has had 3 mentoring sessions with this client and the next session will involve him visting her at her offices to get a feel for the working environment.

4 Comments

Posted by Alison Gilbert on 31 March 2011

Good Job Stevie! 360 degree feedback is an excellent survey to identify areas we need to improve so that we can become increasingly effective. Not forgetting the areas and things we do recognised by others where we are excelling and have little or no self awareness.

Posted by Edmund McKay on 31 March 2011

Having just gone through this process, I can but echo the comments and sentiments of the previous posters. A great tool in your journey of personal de3velopment.

Posted by katie on 30 March 2011

What a brilliant tool the 360 is to learn about yourself and become aware of how others perceive you! Some honest, impartial feedback on a workplace can only be a good thing, and will make people look at how this environment makes them think, feel, act and communicate! KDS offices are truly unique in how they make both staff and visitors feel. Visitors comment on this but rarely, if ever, incorporate aspects into their own workplaces! K

Posted by Tommy Gray on 30 March 2011

Going through certain stages within my PDP I also felt the need to complete a 360, for me it was the next step of me taking responsibility for my personal development, the answers were pretty wide spread but the areas that I copuld improve on became visible and at the end of the day its about learning and learning is progress. So a very valuable tool for PDP''s.

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