T4P:360 Feedback

Being a people manager can be challenging. Delivering outstanding performance through others requires a high level of competence across a wide range of knowledge, skills and behaviours. The managers we meet every day work really hard, and do their utmost to be effective, but they are frequently frustrated by underperformance in their teams. They try their best to do the right things, but it’s hard for them to be clear about whether the things they’re doing are really effective. Sometimes it’s obvious to everyone except the manager themselves that they need to change their behaviour in order to be more effective.

We really encourage a feedback culture, in which leaders and managers actively ask for feedback, and give feedback in return. Without this feedback, how can anyone know how well they are doing?

However, people find it hard to be open and honest in their feedback conversations. They tend to shy away from the difficult conversations that need to be had, for fear of causing hurt or upset. The trouble with this is that it leaves others in the dark about things they do, or don’t do, that may not be serving them well. This means it’s really hard for them to know how to improve their management skills, and what to focus on to improve their performance.

Each manager receives feedback from people all around them: their line manager, their peers, their directs reports and themselves, hence the 360 degree title. The feedback is structured around a range of behavioural statements, and asks each respondent to rate the frequency with which that manager displays each specific behaviour. In addition, respondents are invited to provide supporting comments in free-text form. Each manager should receive feedback from at least five other colleagues, including their line manager, and feedback is presented in groups of no fewer than three people, to ensure anonymity.

The T4P:360 report is usually given to the manager’s line manager, who then adopts a coaching approach to support the manager to identify their strengths and any development points to work on. This can form part of a regular appraisal or performance development review conversation, or could be a completely separate exercise. However, it’s important that the feedback should never be used to make decisions about reward or remuneration.

T4P:360 Training

Before embarking on the feedback, both managers and respondents engage in a short, online training programme to support and encourage them to make effective use of the opportunity to give or receive feedback, and to do this in a constructive and supportive way. Senior managers are also provided training on how to support their direct report managers to work through their T4P:360 feedback reports.

T4P:360 Customisation

The behavioural statements can be completely bespoke to your organisation, using your existing competency framework, or we can help you to develop one. This ensures complete alignment with your organisation’s goals and objectives, while also providing a powerful opportunity to underline what is expected of managers across the organisation. We recommend this bespoke approach as offering the most potential benefit, however if your organisation is at the beginning of its journey in terms of specifying management behaviours, then we are happy to provide our own framework based on the T4P Clarity Matrix.

T4P:360 Impact

Receiving feedback about how others perceive their behaviour provides a powerful opportunity for each manager to identify their strengths and areas they need to develop. The T4P:360 report guides them through a process of reflection to identify behaviours they should stop, start and continue, creating an easy first step towards developing new behaviours that stick. The T4P:360 process can be repeated periodically to track progress

A summary report is also provided to highlight any common strengths or development points, which can feed into the organisation’s learning and development planning. Again, this provides the opportunity to benchmark periodically to track progress, and as a measure for evaluating the impact of the organisation’s investment in specific learning and development activities.