360 Feedback
360 Feedback is the process version of the 360 idea: a validated instrument, a defined set of raters, and a debrief that turns the gap between self-perception and others' view into a development plan.
Stages run left to right from instrument choice through to a finished development plan, each feeding the next.
Reach for this when…
- You've decided to run a 360 and need the actual sequence, not just the concept.
- A coaching client's self-view and their team's view of them clearly don't match.
- Leadership development needs an anchor beyond the coachee's own account.
How to run it
- Select a validated 360 instrument suited to the role level.
- Nominate raters: self, manager, direct reports, peers.
- Raters complete the questionnaire confidentially.
- Return the report with a coaching debrief.
- Identify two or three priority themes, especially self/other gaps.
- Build a development plan around those themes.
A worked example
Situation. Naledi Dlamini founded Lumo Analytics, a SaaS company in Cape Town, South Africa, and had promoted her sharpest engineer, Thabo, into his first management role six months earlier.
Applied. She ran a 360 with his manager, four peers and his three direct reports, then debriefed the report with him line by line.
Result. His self-rating on 'gives credit' was near top marks; his direct reports rated it near bottom. He'd been taking the stand-up wins home in his own head. Naming that gap, not the overall score, became his one development goal for the quarter.
The catch
The instrument only tells you what the questions asked - vague competency wording produces vague, unusable feedback. Raters, especially direct reports, inflate scores if they don't trust confidentiality, so the picture is optimistic by default. A report with twenty scored items overwhelms; without a coach narrowing it to two or three themes, nothing changes.
A 360 without a skilled debrief is just an anxiety-inducing spreadsheet.
Origin: Various (roots in 1930s German military selection methods under Johann Baptist Rieffert; popularised in business by CCL, PDI, Korn Ferry)