Using a 360-degree feedback form to assess your leadership

Most organizations use a top-down approach to assess their employee’s performance. The assumption is that the individual’s manager is the best person to perform an un-biased, quality performance review. As I already pointed out, only archaic organizations still rely on this type of performance assessment (see #6). Not only are traditional performance review not representative but they focus on the skills and competencies the manager wants his employee to develop.

On the other hand, if you prefer a more comprehensive review, you may be interested in 360-degree feedback. This type of feedback mechanism covers various sources – boss, colleagues, employees, customers, suppliers, etc and as such provides better coverage for the evaluation of an employee’s strengths and weaknesses. In some cases, the employee may even decide which specific skills to assess.

360-degree feedback form

After working on the competencies required by my bosses for most of my career, I have decided to build my own 360-degree feedback form to assess my leadership abilities. You may download and use the Excel version of this form – a pdf version is also available. *

The form presents Weaknesses – skills to improve (in column C) and Strengths – skills to maintain (in column I). The evaluator must rate each statement or competency, using a scale from 0 to -4 (for the weaknesses) and from 0 to 4 (for the strengths). The evaluation scale is presented below.

Although there are 50 competencies, the evaluator is given a maximum of 25 points to allocate forcing them to choose which competencies to recognize as strengths or weaknesses.

Evaluation scale

• 0: This competency is average.
• +1: This competency is above the 50th percentile compared to the population.
• +2: This competency is above the 75th percentile compared to the population.
• +3: This competency is above the 10th percentile compared to the population.
• +4: This competency is above the 1st percentile compared to the population.

360-degree feedback form by Martin Proulx is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada License.

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* Under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada License, you are entitled to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon my work, even commercially, as long as you credit me for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with the works licensed under Attribution.

 

It’s a bad idea to hire super heros

 

Don't hire super heros

Sure, super heros are powerful. They have strengths and abilities that regular humans don’t possess. They can always be counted on to save the day and they wear cool suits! But…

Have you considered the damage a super hero can do to your team, to your department, and sometime to your organization?

Over the years, I have had the opportunity (?) to work with super heros. Every time, the initial reaction is always the same – wow, this individual is amazing! Eventually, after I analyze the accomplishments, look at the situation and the impact on others around the super hero I am less than impressed. Here’s why:

• Having a super hero hides the real underlying problems because the super hero will always save the day – no matter what caused the situation to start with. Unless you have a retrospective or a post-mortem following the resolution of the problem, you will not be able to assess if the problem is likely to happen again in the future;
• A super hero causes resentment within a team since he is typically the one rewarded for the efforts. In addition, a super hero loves the spotlight and will seldom share it with other people who helped resolve the crisis;
• A super hero thrives on solving problems and some have been known to spark an explosive situation so they can jump in later on to resolve it.

Everything is not lost if you have a super hero on your team. Next time he saves the day, simply thank him for his action and then reward the individual who suggests and implements a way to prevent the situation moving forward.

 

 

Stop telling me HOW to do my job

“Americans hate their jobs more than ever” … “Majority of Americans dislike their jobs” …

These are only 2 examples of a quick google search that returned over 44.1 million pages. Try “I hate my job” and the content of the pages returned is also very sad.

I don’t intend to go into socio-psychological analysis in this post but I wonder if something as simple as trusting your employees to do their job properly would actually increase job satisfaction?

For most people, enjoying their job would simply mean doing the same type of work but in a different work setting. Many people have spent years studying to develop their expertise in a specific field that they love. Then, one day, they start working and life becomes miserable – not because they hate what they are doing but because of the way the are treated at work. Once again, I don’t want to go into harassment or this type of treatment. The only point I’m raising is that letting professionals determine the best way for them to complete their work would is such a simple of increasing job satisfaction.

“Yes, but I’m the boss” – you reply.

So what? The fact that you were hired to lead or manage people in achieving a team or departmental objective doesn’t make you the most qualified individual to resolve day-to-day issues.

“Yes, but I’ve done this job before” – you insist.

Once again, so what? The individuals performing the job now bring different skill sets and expertise to the equation and as such are qualified to address their work as they see fit. You may provide guidance or answer your employee’s questions when they come ask for help but not tell them how to do their job.

Put together a community of expertise so people doing similar work can support each other. Provide tools if they need, support your employees in finding the right answers to their problems but don’t tell them how to do it.

There is a small Japanese car-manufacturer that understood that concept a while ago. They are now the largest car manufacturer in the world. Don’t you wonder how they achieved their success?

Happy 1st anniversary Analytical-Mind

1 year of blogging

It has already been 1 year since I published my first blog post. As I quickly figured out, Blogging is like training! It requires time, energy, and commitment and when it is done regularly, it is a great exercise for the mind.

In the 154 posts published since the beginning, my blog has evolved – a lot. I admit, I originally had no real focus and mostly expressed personal opinions.

• Since I like to read, in the beginning I was publishing book reviews which eventually led me to share my virtual bookshelf.
• After joining Pyxis, I naturally started discussing Scrum and Agile principles.
• I then moved on to Agile Business Intelligence which was more technical in nature and attempted to launch a collaborative book.
• Until I discovered something I was much more passionate about – Leadership and Strategy.
• Once in a while, I would point out Other interesting blog posts.
• For several months now, I have been focusing mostly on new organizational structures, communities and agile management.

I realize my style is a mix of situational analysis (analytical-mind), philosophical perspective, suggestions and advices sometime using humour to convey my message.

Finally, my most popular posts were:

1. How I failed as a Product Owner and the lessons I learnt in the process
2. The Prisoner’s Dilemma: Applying Game Theory to Agile Contracting
3. My Virtual Bookshelf
4. Less projects were reported to be successful in 2008
5. Scrum Artifact: Burn Down Chart

In order to improve my blog moving forward, I did a 1-year retrospective and I asked myself 3 simple questions.

What do I feel I did well?

Although there were times when I didn’t publish for a few weeks, I remained committed to maintaining the blog. Not all posts have the same depth but I try to share my perspective and discuss a different way of doing things with the objective of improving people’s quality of life at the office and improving the return on organizational investments.

What do I feel I didn’t do well?

Until I decided which track to follow, I wasn’t focused. It was difficult to retain readers since they didn’t know what to expect.

What do I need to start doing?

Increase collaboration with other bloggers and stay focused on the topics of innovative management, new organizational structures, and leadership.

Do you wonder why your boss doesn’t show up at your meeting?

This is not an un-usual situation. You call a meeting that you deem important. You invite the right people to have a constructive conversation in the hopes of coming to a decision that will be accepted by most. You planned everything ahead of time in order to maximize your participants’ “Return On Time Invested” (ROTI).

Before the meeting and without further information, your boss tells you that he won’t be attending your meeting. You try to get over the inital disappointment and frustration in order to answer the nagging question that pops in your mind “Why doesn’t my boss show up at my meeting?“.

Assuming for a minute that this is not due to an un-expected situation and that you were told before the start of the meeting – being told during the meeting would add insult to injury by showing a lack of respect.

I can only think of 2 reasons to explain that behavior:

• The decision for which you are meeting has already been taken or will be taken behind closed-door.
• The decision is not important for your boss.

Either way, this demonstrates that your boss doesn’t care about the decision stemming from the meeting. Although that is frustrating and wastes people time and energy, it is not dramatic in itself. This becomes a problem because of the lack of communication around your boss’ decision not to attend the meeting.

You may not be pleased if your boss tells you that the decision has already been taken but at least, you wouldn’t feel like an idiot when you realize this fact after you put your time and energy in the meeting.

Now, let’s give this situation a different spin and imagine receiving the following information from your boss before your meeting:

• My absence to your meeting does not indicate that I do not believe in the value of your meeting;
• I trust the group and their collective intelligence to make an informed decision;
• I am confident that the participants will challenge each other and will have good discussions;
• I want to prevent the debate from revolving around my opinion, which could bias the conversation;
• I prefer to support individuals with my expertise rather than take decisions for them.

Would you still wonder what your boss’ intentions were? Wouldn’t you feel good? Trusted? Motivated??

If you manage people, don’t let them wonder about your intention. Tell them the reason behind your actions.

Yoplait’s “pineapple-coconut-banana” yogurt doesn’t contain coconut!

I was living in the now this morning. One of those zen moments. I was sitting peacefully, eating a yogurt. My wife was at the grocery store, my daughter was at her painting class, and my son was still sleeping.

Since my brain wasn’t jumping around with various thoughts, I was really tasting the yogurt.

“Hmmm, it’s delicious!”, I thought to myself. It was the first time I tried this new flavor.

“It tastes like pineapple with a hint of banana…”.

“Interesting, the label says pineapple-coconut-banana but I can’t taste the coconut!”.

“Let me read the ingredients. Skim milk (that’s good), Sugar (really, 2nd ingredient), pineapples (yes, that makes sense), bananas (yes, that also makes sense)… Colour”. I got to the last ingredient and realized there was no coconut in the yogurt. None!

Why would they call their yogurt pineapple-coconut-banana if there is no coconut? Why not simply pineapple and banana?? Is the simple fact of adding coconut to the label enough for people to believe there is coconut and actually taste it? Is this simply a case of misleading consumers? I wonder…

I guess living in the now does bring us a better perspective of the world around us.

Yoplait's pineapple-coconut-banana yogurt

Where is the coconut?

How can someone Join a Community? Can people leave a Community?

Joining a Community is Simple

Everyone can ask to join a community if it is open to integrate new members. Once again, the community decides how many members it will allow and which skill set, profile and experience is required to qualify. Assuming the community is accepting new members, anybody who believes they meet the requirements may ask to join the community.

Leaving a Community is Simple

Based on the norms established by the community, people may leave with (or without) advanced notice. Communities are usually fluid and allow for members to join and leave in order to support the emergence of new ideas and new energy to reach the set objectives.

In order not to disrupt significantly the activities of the community, members are usually required to provide advanced notice to the other community members.

The Community May Ask People to Leave

Norms vary for each communities but in our situation there is a fundamental rule that states the “no single individual can have authority over another individual”. As such, community members cannot be expelled or fired based on the decision of a single individual, including the community leader. Community members who fail to comply to the norms and values of their group may be asked to leave if the majority of community members support the decision.

As in the case of a voluntary departure, the community is required to provide advanced notice to the member they wish to expel.

For more content on the topic of communities, you may follow the community tag.

What Rules Do Communities Follow?

The answer to that question is simple: NONE.

It is not that communities are disorganized and chaotic but Our Communities do not follow rules as they are currently understood and documented. The Merriam-Webster dictionnary defines rules as “a prescribed guide for conduct or action” or “the laws or regulations prescribed by the founder of a religious order for observance by its members“. By that definition, rules are very strict and typically defined by the leading members of the group.

Our communities use norms to organize themselves and ensure common understanding. As per wikipedia, norms “are the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors“.

Each community defines its set of norms under which they wish to operation. To ensure the community is linked to other communities, the group must ensure their norms are inline with the norms of the greater community to which they belong.

Some norms may be identical for all the communities (i.e. freedom of expression) while some communities may have specifics expectations (i.e. specific time commitment).

Typically, more norms are required at the early stages of a community to create a common culture and set of values and to prevent abuse. As the community matures, less norms are required and the community self-regulates. It is critical for the norms to be clearly communicated at the entry point in order to avoid misunderstanding and confusion later in time.

In the end, the level of freedom and the type of structure used by each community is never as important as the results they achieve.

Non Traditional Organizations – The Community Structure

A few weeks ago, I presented the organizational structure used for our Monthly Strategic Meetings. Since then, I had the opportunity to read: The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, and The Right Use of Power and attended an interesting session at Agile 2009.

As I was walking the kids to school one morning, everything fell into place. Communities could be the new way of structuring organizations.

Most organizations are still structured around hierarchies – top-down command and control structures. Some have move towards a matrix type organization and very few organizations adopted other types of structure. As part of an ongoing experiment, we (at Pyxis) are trying to move away from traditional organizational structures while still remaining a profitable organization. Evacuating the financial aspect might allow for even more creative organizational type but generating profit is one of the constraint we are dealing with.

In an attempt to provide information about the Community Structure, I will add content in various blog posts over the next few weeks with the objective of documenting what it means to operate an organization as if it was a community of communities.

I invite you to share your thoughts and experience on this topic.

Facilitation Approach used to Define a Commercial Vision

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to organize and facilitate a half-day meeting with the objective of defining a Commercial Vision. Similar to a corporate vision, the commercial vision is a long-term endeavour used to align and inspire people and communicate a common objective for the organization. The distinction with the commercial vision is that the commercial vision is strictly from a business development and commercial perspective. The commercial vision is a sub-section of the overall corporate vision.

Below is the facilitation approach I used and judging from the level of involvement of the participants, the energy level in the room throughout the morning, and the results of the end-of-session feedback, I would have to say it was a success. In an attempt to share the approach I am publishing the steps and activities used during the meeting. I welcome your comments.

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Preparation (before the meeting)

• The topic for the meeting was : Vision 2020.
• To set the stage, I posted on the wall 20 newspaper articles from 2020.
• I also put up 30 words, each on their own 8.5 x 11 sheet.

[Note: In addition to creating some interest, participants immediately started sharing their thoughts about the newspaper articles. The newspaper articles were a nice ice breaker]

Wall Decoration

Wall Decoration

Wall Decoration

Welcome (10 minutes)

• Thank the participants for attending the meeting and ask them to keep an open mind – beside establishing a Vision for 2020, there is no set goal for the meeting.
• Explain to the participants that the purpose of the exercise is to provide a common framework for the commercial development of the organization.
• The end result (the Vision) is not cast in concrete – it is simply a direction.

Round Table (10 minutes)

• Ask each participant what their expectations are from the meeting?

[Note: In addition to getting people to start opening up and initiating conversation, the round table is useful for the facilitator to understand the expectations and aim to achieve them]

Reason for the meeting (10 minutes)

• Ask each participant if they are wondering why we want to talk about a commercial vision?

[Note: The objective is to anticipate and address any reservation that participants may have before getting into the meat of the meeting]

Introduction (5 minutes)

• Presentation of Apple’s video.
• The Vision traces a common goal without dictating the means to achieve it. Our goal is to provide a Vision and then allow individuals the opportunity and means to achieve it.
• The actions and behavior of people will be in line with the Vision once it is clearly established.

Tantrix Game (15 minutes)

• To create a break from their other thoughts and create a space for creativity, I invited the participants to play the Tantrix Game.
• The goal of this exercise is to force a break from routine activities so participants can then focus on the meeting.
• In addition to creating a fun environment, the game allowed for some friendly competition – each participant wanting to complete the game before their colleague.

Tantrix Game

Defining the Vision (60 minutes)

• When participants are ready to share their idea of a commercial Vision, they share their Vision with the rest of the participants and then write a summary of the Vision on a 4 x 6 index card.
• The game has 2 simple rules: when a participant builds on the idea of another participant, he must begin his sentence with “AND“, and it is strictly prohibited to use any negative terms such as but, however, no, can’t, etc. to express the Vision.
• In the latter case, the use of negative terms leads to a consequences for the offending participant (10 push-ups).

Break (10 minutes)

Aggregation of Ideas (20 minutes)

• The group is divided into teams of 3 to 5 participants.
• The facilitator gathers all the index cards and splits them into as many piles as there are teams.
• Each team receives a stack of 4 x 6 index cards.
• Each teams work independently to determine 3 to 5 main themes based on the cards they have received.

Presentation (10 minutes per team)

• Each team selects a representative to present the rest of the group the 3 to 5 main themes.
• The objective is to derive common themes in order to build upon them in the second part of the meeting.

Lunch Break (60 minutes)

Writing the Vision (30 minutes)

• Once again, the group is divided into groups of 3 to 5 participants.
• The teams can be the same or different from the previous exercise.
• The objective of the exercise is to ask the teams to write a one-page magazine article to complete the news the appeared on the cover of the October 14, 2020 “Fortune 3000” magazine following the commercial success of their organization.

Sharing the Vision (10 minutes per team)

• Each team in the group reads the contents of their magazine article.

Aggregation of the Visions (15 minutes)

• As a single group, participants work to write an article covering the perspective of each team to achieve a common vision for the whole group.

Reading the Vision (5 minutes)

• As a conclusion to the exercise, one participant reads the final version of the magazine article (the Vision) to the entire group.

Retrospective (30 minutes)

• Participants voice their assessment of the meeting by answering the following questions: what part of the meeting were pathetic? what elements of the meeting went very smoothly? what could be added to the meeting in order to improve next time.

Wrap-up (5 minutes)

• The facilitator thanks the participants for their contribution and dissolve the meeting.