Preparing for 360 feedback sessions

Drawing together and making sense of the information gathered in a 360 review is an important element when preparing for 360 feedback sessions.

Typically you'll have a report generated from your on-line 360 tool such as Talent 360 which brings together the various observations, comments and feedback. But how then to present this to the participant when there is so much of value?

On our facilitator training programme which helps introduce our users to their role in the feedback session, we introduce people to our Head Light Lenses - and we use the term ‘lens’ because different models provide slightly different ways of
looking at feedback - and preparing for 360 feedback sessions - and can be used to achieve a specific aim or objective.

One commonly used model for evaluating and using the outputs from a 360 degree review is the ‘JoHari Window’.  The JoHari Window is an excellent tool for helping people to build their self-awareness and understand how they can interact more effectively with others, but it does have its limitations. Even the most sophisticated of 360 degree feedback processes is unable to identify things of which neither the individual nor others are aware, so it does require a certain amount of skill and experience in order to uncover aspects of behaviour or performance that are in the ‘unknown’ pane.

Our Head of Business Psychology developed a lens called PAPU-NANU and used this when preparing for 360 feedback sessions our consultants were running.  It's not named after a Polynesian island – it stands for Positive:Aware, Positive:Unaware, Negative:Aware, Negative:Unaware.

PAPU-NANU is similar to the JoHari Window, but it focuses on these perceptual differences and uses slightly different axes to sort the information:

1. Whether the feedback was a surprise, or whether it was expected by yourself (aware vs. unaware)
2. Whether the feedback was positive (or motivational) or negative (developmental, or constructive) – this is often most easily identified by the strength of others’ ratings (relatively high or relatively low)

The four resultant categories, or ‘boxes’, are described below.

• GREEN - Clear strengths: positive or more highly-rated feedback which was expected
• PINK - Good news: positive or more highly-rated feedback which was unexpected
• YELLOW - Agreed development areas: developmental or lower-rated feedback, which was expected
• ORANGE - Hidden talents: unexpected developmental or lower-rated feedback

After sorting and presenting the information in this way, the feedback facilitator and the participant are then able to look at this and take it forward into development actions.

We found PAPU-NANU to be so useful when reviewing a 360 degree feedback report, either in preparation for a feedback conversation or during a session, helping a recipient to understand their data, that we now include it in our as standard in our Talent 360 software.

You can read more about PAPU-NANU and how this helps you to make sense of 360 in our We think... article as part of our range of Resources.