How To Ask For Basic Feedback

Guys, I just did a 360. (LEA-Strategic

Guys, I just did a 360. (LEA-Strategic Leadership Development) I will try to avoid the pitfalls you speak about. I have a great coach who has already talked to me about the same concerns.

I am set to get the results in a week or so.

I look forward to letting you know how it goes.

I love the podcasts and can't wait for the book.

Craig

Hey guys, I haven't had a chance to

Hey guys,

I haven't had a chance to listen to this podcast yet, but I am really interested to hear what you have to say about 360° feedback. Last April I commissioned 360° feedback surveys (MLQ-multi factor leadership questionnaires) for my senior management team including myself. When nominating my raters, I chose a cross-section of peers and subordinates and superiors. That really proved to be a big mistake as by including the disgruntled who were resisting the change management I represented, it dragged down my totals and skewed some of the results adversely.

It was clear to me from looking at the results that all one had to do was nominate raters who would be favourable and your scores would reflect that accordingly. In other words, I found it nothing more than a popularity poll.

Now I have a pretty thick skin and can handle a bit of criticism, especially when it's justified, so I did find parts of the report useful. I'm insightful enough to realise what parts were true what parts were not.

Disturbingly, my organisation is now trying to train up some internal auditors as MLQ facilitators with the intention of profiling commanders (I am a senior police commander in a police force of around 18,000 staff) Given our internal politics I have no doubt these reviews will not be used constructively.

On another note, Manager Tools is a great resource and I've gained a lot of practical advice from listening to your podcasts in the four months or so since I discovered your site. While I've had plenty of training and experience over the years in commanding and leading in an operational capacity, we receive absolutely no training in the soft skills.

Once again, thank you and keep it up.

Regards

Rob

Aloha, I am interested in ways to

Aloha,

I am interested in ways to facilitate feedback on a process, as opposed to a specific person.

I work with educational institutions undergoing accreditation or other regulatory reviews. Typically these are schools that are going through this process for the "first" time-- they are new, have changed accreditation agencies, have had regulations change on them, or have had structural/staff changes that make the situation "new". These also tend to be smaller schools, so although they are human institutions, they don't have the depth of intrigue one might find in a large state university and which seems to characterize opinions of academia in the general public.

Do you have any suggestions for a feedback cycle when what is sought is feedback on a process (e.g. faculty having to do course or peer-reviews), or the person is a committee (e.g. faculty submitting materials to a curricular oversight group), or the feedback-giver is responding to working within a committee? In such cases it would be unfair, perhaps, to simply say that the committee chair is the person focused on.

The basic feedback cycle you reccomend is very appealing-- responding faculty don't want to file a fancy review report at the end of an accreditation process, and are as busy as the rest of us anyway. It also seems like it could, at best, be done in a very (excuse the pun) collegial style.

As always, thanks for the excellent podcasts.

Rod- Yes, we do have that queued up,

Rod-

Yes, we do have that queued up, for later this year.

Mark

Just a generic question about

Just a generic question about downloading these podcasts in ipod. How do you reload a podcast that was only loaded half the way? My DSL connection just dropped, and a couple of the podcasts were loaded only half way.

Also, how do you reload a list of all the podcasts for Manager tools?

Last monthly podcast on this

Last monthly podcast on this "Registered Users", on How To Ask For Basic Feedback is dated March 2nd, 2007.
Is there another for the month of April, and what about May?

heam711220, Sorry ... Mark and I got

heam711220,

Sorry ... Mark and I got consumed by work. You'll see two "registered" podcasts this month to make up for our tardiness. :-)

regards,
Mike

This cast is yet another example of why

This cast is yet another example of why I love Manager Tools so much. It contains another smart do-able list of actions to help improve my skills as a manager.

I've been looking for an effective way to seek out feedback from my team to augment my 'is there anything I could be doing better or differently' approach. The Start-Stop-Continue exercise sounds perfect for my creative team. I can't wait to try it out over the next few months - I'll let you know how it goes.

Hey guys, any plans of making you way to Toronto?

Regards,
A

Anita- Glad you liked the tool. It

Anita-

Glad you liked the tool. It works nicely, even if it does take some time to get there.

Sure, we'll get to Toronto...I'm hoping in '08... and we'll do a meet up.

Mark

Mark or Mike, How would you modify

Mark or Mike,
How would you modify this if your new team is mostly remote and don't know you?

My specifics are that I'm taking over management of a software dev/qa/docs group around 20 where 1/3 are in one location, 1/3 are in another and 1/3 are in a third. The project manager is actually remote from me in one of those locations. We have WebEx and cameras available but in the past I've found using technology tends to consume/distract the process. I know some people well enough in one of the 3 to ask them to help at that location. But in the third location, I slightly know one person and don't know the rest.

This is important to me because the specific team as well as the Engineering organization has gone through several years of turmoil, re-orgs, buyouts and bad moral. I am sensing some lack of trust in each other as well.

I have been a manager for 5+ years and with the company for 10+ years. I have good relationships with the people I know on the team even though I have not worked with them. Several of them come to me frequently for advice and asked me to apply for the job.

Dear Mark and Mike, Thanks again for

Dear Mark and Mike,

Thanks again for a very useful cast. I have a question about step two though. My partner and I run a very small business, and as such the team meetings are co-facilitated by both of us. How woudl step two run in this environment? Or should I do it on a day when my partner isn't there?
Any advice would be much appreciated!

Cheers!
Mike

Mike- Depends on your relationship

Mike-

Depends on your relationship with your partner. If it's less than strong, or you believe there are significant differences in likely results, do the meetings separately. If not, have one meeting, and ask attendees to either append names to those behaviors that apply to just one of you, and no names for those that apply to both.

Works fine - if the relationship is good.

Mark

Mark and Mike, Good podcast with

Mark and Mike,

Good podcast with some useful steps.

How much more different would the podcast be if we were to solicit feedback from our customers regarding our performance. I work as a Project Manager and feel that having feedback from my customers would be useful. Unfortunately, I have projects in India, China, Turkey and South Africa and each culture is different in the verbal and non-verbal cues with communication.

Thoughts? Maybe another podcast?

-Shawn

Hey, it seems we have a lots of

Hey, it seems we have a lots of "boomerangs" around here!
I have been one. The company I first worked for before doing my "civil service" called me 4 years later... We already knew each other, even if my first job only lasted less than 1 year, so the hiring and integration processes were quick and easy!

Ced.

Mark - I did stop/start/continue with

Mark - I did stop/start/continue with my team 3 months ago. What do you recommend doing as a follow-up? Do I just put back up the original stop/start/continue flipcharts, ask them how I'm progresing, and then leave the room?

Jon- Sort of. First, visit

Jon-

Sort of.

First, visit individually. [I assume you did this before the first incarnation of SSC.] Ask for an update from everyone in week one, and in week two, announce that you're going to do an abbreviated "update" session. That gives those who aren't comfortable sharing in public more time, and gets everyone paying attention again.

Let us know how it goes.

Mark