6 reasons why you'd want to use 360 degree feedback with teams

360 degree feedback is traditionally – and widely – used as a way of identifying individual strengths and development needs. It’s used often as part of a leadership or personal development programme, or alongside coaching – but, it seems, it’s rarely used with teams.

Why is that?

In our experience it’s because many 360 tools are limited in their ability to offer analytics which look at a team perspective.

Our Talent 360® is different. We have specifically designed and developed analytics which look specifically at presenting the 360 results from groups of people. It means you can extend your use of 360, for no additional investment. 

Some practical applications:

#1 To see how people in a team compare with each other using their 360 scores
Perhaps you’re looking at a talent pool you’ve created - or a specific fast-track cohort of people - and you want to understand how each person compares to the group. This is ideal when you want to see: who is further ahead in their development than others; who is stronger on specific competencies and might suit a role better than others; match peer-coaches or find mentors from those doing well in a particular area.

To pinpoint these areas, look out for the following reports in your 360 software. 

• The ability to compare the overall score (an average across all the competencies and questions in the assessment) and against the competencies individually.
• How the different review groups (e.g., manager, peers, direct reports) have scored across the team as a whole. It helps to see who is performing better than their peers – or who may need additional support or development.

#2 To understand how people work with each other
Team success is based on how well the team can work together and achieve its objectives. 

• Can you look at differences between response groups? (e.g., are managers rating people much lower than other groups?)

This can generate questions around how people are working with each other, the quality of the interactions they have and also indicate whether there are potential issues around inclusion, diversity and fairness in terms of the way people view and rate different groups.

#3 To find out the strengths and development needs that the team members share
Unearthing the collective strengths of a team is valuable. As is knowing where perhaps the team members may be less strong.

• Check if your 360 can draw together in one, very easy to understand chart: what the team knows is strong about them; where others outside the team see their strengths; the strengths they’re not yet demonstrating outside the team; and where they need to develop.

The Talent 360® Team PAPU NANU analytic will show you this. And you can even flex the analytic itself so you can set how many individuals within the team or cohort should share the strengths, development needs etc. Great for team building and team development – without the cost of needing experts in psychometrics, and focused on the very specific behaviours for the team.

This type of analysis can also add real value when looking for opportunities for increasing impact of the team, or when developing a team brand, climate or identity.  

#4 To carry out a Training Needs Analysis for a team
Where a cohort of individuals are doing 360 as part of a leadership development programme, Team PAPU-NANU can help you to – as a course leader – shape content to best meet the learning needs of the participants; a a mini training needs analysis (TNA). Or, it can help you tailor the content of the programme or spend more or less time focusing on particular elements, depending on the strengths and development needs of the group.
Looking at groups across the organisation

#5 To identify those seen to be performing better than their peers and may be ready for the next challenge
To help in this you need:

• an analytic that is interactive and capable of interrogation which allows you to sort and order the 360 feedback scores for a group of individuals, across different competencies. 
• an easy, visual snapshot of who is seen to be above average, who might need a little more help and support and who your top performers are likely to be.

#6 To show the 'before' and 'after'.
You'll want to show progress following a development intervention. Use 360 as pre-training training needs analysis and then re-administer the review 12-18 months after a programme has been attended to show progress in key areas. 

Look out for the functionality in your 360 software that lets you do this. 

There is so much more value from using 360 degree feedback beyond individual development planning. Why not jot some ideas down now and take action - and, if you'd like to learn more about using 360 with teams, then get in touch.