What is a 360 report and why does it matter?

I've been doing a ton of 360 reports for executives this past month and I wanted to share a bit about what they are and why they matter. TLDR: Sometimes we’re really bad at observing ourselves, and as leaders, it’s how we impact others that matters most.

WHAT IS A 360?
A 360 is a common leadership assessment tool, where we interview approximately 10-12 people for a client to get a sense of what this person's strengths are, their areas for growth and potential challenges ahead for them. All of the interviews are confidential and it’s important to have a 3rd party run them (not someone internal), so that people feel safe enough to be direct.

WHY DO ONE?
This is incredibly useful to do at the beginning of a coaching engagement because it gives us the data we need into order to best choose where to focus our coaching efforts. Leadership is about perception others have about us. Are we someone people want to follow? Are we having the impact we’re intending to have? Where are we helping drive the company forward and where are we possibly holding it back? Often without a 360, we’re relying on our own perception of ourselves and we miss so many important pieces of the puzzle.

WHO PARTICIPATES?
Interviewees usually includes the client’s peers, boss or board members, direct reports, other pivotal people in the organization. We also sometimes interview their spouse, family members or former colleagues in order to get a full 360 view on this person. As you can imagine, this is an incredibly subjective process. 10 different people have 10 perspectives. However, we’ll often see the same themes come up again and again in our interviews, and those are the ones that we include in the report.

ONLINE SURVEY VS. INTERVIEW 360s
At Evolution, we offer both our proprietary online survey and the qualitative interview-based surveys. The online survey gives quantitative data where a client can be scored on core leadership and management capabilities and then have that to measure against future scores. It gives us a great baseline picture for the person. The interview-based survey allows us to ask follow up questions, get examples of behaviors and go deeper into the nuances of how the client is showing up. It’s also super helpful when you have an intimidating leader who folks might be weary of sharing direct feedback to in an online survey.

WHAT TO DO AFTER
If you’ve had your 360 done, after you've processed your report is the PERFECT opportunity to thank everyone who participated, share what you learned, what you want to work on and ask for their support. Often other people may not notice that we’re changing unless we tell them we are! This also requires a level of vulnerability and directness which is golden for creating trust and partnership.