It was like a bucket of water! But I needed it. Nothing wakes up your self-awareness like seeing honest feedback from those you work most closely with.
For this reason—the “wake-up call” effect—one of our pharma clients asked us to build a 360 feedback tool for their Regional Sales Managers (RSMs) and administer the process for them. The client was looking to jolt the RSMs out of their complacency and begin to develop a culture of continuous improvement. This case study describes our approach, design considerations, and best practices for achieving the client’s goals.
The Challenges
Our clients, the head of Sales and the head of Sales Training, were frustrated by what they perceived to be an entrenched mindset across the sales leadership team, especially at the Regional Sales Manager (RSM) level. Every year, they ran sales leadership courses offered by the big content vendors, and each time they saw many smiley faces on feedback forms but no change in behavior.
The Sales organization experienced a great deal of initial success, but as their product portfolio matured, sales growth flattened, and success got more challenging. Their top sales reps were getting poached by a new wave of competitors as employee turnover numbers climbed. The worst-performing RSMs were replaced, but the same patterns persisted.
It’s within this context that the client approached us about implementing 360 feedback.
#1: Disengaged Leaders
According to the client and the senior sales leadership team, the RSMs were not active enough in terms of visiting their sales reps in the field, providing them with constructive feedback, challenging them, encouraging them, inspiring them, and supporting their skill development. Engagement surveys and exit interviews supported these claims: the sales reps did not feel well supported by their RSMs. A catalyst was needed to jump-start theright attitudes and behaviors.
#2: Fear of Feedback
Given the tensions that were being stirred by missed sales targets, top performers exiting, RSMs being replaced, and National Sales Directors scrambling to plug the leaks, it is not surprising that the sales team was feeling nervous about the implementation of 360 feedback. The RSMs were not accustomed to receiving positive or constructive feedback. One RSM shared, “The only feedback we ever get is when we get yelled at for not hitting our numbers. We just try to keep our heads down.”
#3: Lack of Growth Mindset
Sales professionals, perhaps more than any other group, tend to be extremely goal-oriented. Their professional growth is measured in terms of hitting sales quotas, not in terms of completing a stretch assignment, leading a project team, mentoring colleagues, or mastering new skills. “Everything takes a back seat to sales goal attainment,” the head of Sales shared, “that leaves little room for learning new things.” Unfortunately, that single-minded focus can also stifle professional development and, after a few years, can leave a good rep feeling like there’s no way to grow in their career.”
The Solution Architecture
Step 1: Ground Rules
Establish rules of engagement to govern how we collect and use data while protecting privacy and fostering candor.
Knowing that the audience is potentially skeptical and fearful about 360 feedback, it is important that we take the time upfront to establish some healthy ground rules with the senior leaders. The question we keep front and center is:
How do we protect the privacy of the respondents and create a safe space for everyone to be candid in their feedback?
Without candor, 360 feedback is useless and frankly a waste of the company’s time and money. If colleagues are scared of making enemies and sales reps are scared of their manager’s retribution, there will be no candor.
Our solution included:
OPT-IN BY DEFAULT. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) currently represents the gold standard for data management, granting individuals in the EU/EEA greater control over their personal data. Even though not all of the survey takers would necessarily live within the EU’s jurisdiction, we adopted GDPR as our standard globally, to err on the side of building trust. An important GDPR stipulation is that the individual respondent must, by default, opt into sharing their data. Aside from it being the correct thing to do legally and ethically, taking an “opt-in by default” approach, we find that the data quality is better because anyone who fills out a survey does so voluntarily.
PRIVACY POLICY. Another GDPR stipulation is that the survey taker must give informed consent based on a Data Privacy Policy statement that clearly specifies for them how their data will be used, stored, and shared. We worked closely with the client and sales leadership team to define exactly how the data would be used and how it would not be used. For example, should anyone be able to see which colleagues and employees responded to the survey, or should that information be anonymized? Anonymizing tends to create greater psychological safety for the survey takers, which sets the conditions for greater candor.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. How would our team interact with the 360 participants, their managers, and their other respondents? How would we act as good data stewards on behalf of the client? Again, we discussed these parameters and defined the rules of engagement through two documents: the Data Management Agreement and the Communications Plan. The former defines the parameters for how we will act as the agency-of-record for the data, while the latter specifies how exactly we will communicate with the various parties and what we are authorized to say. These documents ensured thatall parties would be protected.
Step 2: Education
Prepare the participants, their managers, the rest of their 360 respondents, and senior leaders, setting the foundation for receptivity to candid feedback.
Launching a 360 feedback program in a business unit without laying a proper foundation is a recipe for failure. At best, the program will be viewed with ambivalence or even skepticism, the lack of candor will yield ineffectual 360 reports, and the leadership team will be frustrated by the lack of impact and ROI. Worse yet, the 360 feedback may deepen the distrust, cynicism, and toxicity that you are trying to address.
How do you lay the proper foundation for a successful 360 program?
LEADERSHIP BUY-IN. With this RSM project, we worked with the client, their head of sales training, and the rest of the leadership team, involving them in all key decisions about how the 360 program would work, what its goals would be, what the surveys and reports would include, how we would handle readout sessions, and how our coaches would hand things off to the sales leaders. We also worked with them on their rollout plan and communications campaign. We attended rollout sessions to support the client and senior leaders as they introduced the program to their RSMs and the rest of the sales organization. By keeping the leadership team bought in throughout the process, we ensured their support and commitment to the follow-through required.
CULTURE OF FEEDBACK. A 360 works best when the leadership team shifts the culture towards a more growth-oriented one that embraces feedback. That type of culture leads to improved retention of top performers, increased employee engagement, and the productivity that comes with it, as well as an agile workforce that can more easily adapt to changing circumstances and evolve new capabilities. With that in mind, we co-facilitated workshops with the sales leaders to help them put a Career Development Process in place, along with Individual Development Plans, mentoring, and other program elements that foster a growth mindset, where feedback is sought after and valued.
TRANSPARENCY. We knew that the RSMs and their 360 respondents would have questions and concerns about the process, especially around confidentiality. With that in mind, we created a series of information guides, one for the RSMs participating as the subjects of the 360 surveys, one for their manager who would be helping their RSMs select respondents and later process the 360 feedback, and one for the customers, colleagues, and employees who would be asked to respond to the surveys. Being transparent and clear with them engendered trust in the process.
Step 3: Skills-Based Behavioral Interviewing
Get the participants started by having them opt in and select their 360 respondents, then inform those respondents of what is coming.
Once the work of communicating expectations and spinning up receptivity had been accomplished, we were ready to get started. The first operational step was to get the RSMs to register as 360 participants, voluntarily opting into the process. We created a link to a registration site, which the head of sales training shared with the RSMs. To their credit, all of them opted in immediately without requiring nudging.
RESPONDENT ROSTER. When RSMs registered as participants, they were each sent an email with a link to their unique Roster Form. In that form, they entered the names and email addresses of their manager, their internal customers, their peers and cross-functional colleagues, and their employees, the sales reps they managed.
Examples of Intake and Roster Forms
During spin-up, we emphasized the importance of selecting respondents who would be candid and who would challenge the RSM. This was reinforced during intake as well.
Afterward, we confirmed that the names and email addresses were spelled correctly and then sent the respondents a general announcement that they had been selected, asking them to read the Information Guide to learn more about the process.
Information Guides Sent to Respondents
Step 4: 360 Survey
Launch the 360 survey to the participants and their respondents, creating a user experience that engenders trust and promotes candor.
Once the Rosters were confirmed, we scheduled the 360 surveys to launch. Our overriding concern at this stage was to provide a great survey-taking experience, so that we would maximize the completion rate. The more responses we got back, the more robust the 360 report would be.
There were five variants of the survey, one for each respondent type: Participant, Manager, Customer, Peer, and Employee. The language in each variant was customized to the respondent, and in some cases, there were questions that applied to some respondents but not others. One thing that made 360 feedback challenging was the need to map the responses from these multiple variations of a survey back to a single participant.
NUDGES & UPDATES. By the end of the first week, the survey completion rate reached 40%, but in order to produce meaningful results, we aimed for 80-90%. At the one-week mark, we sent a reminder email to any respondents who had not yet responded. We sent a second reminder two business days prior to the survey close date, and then a final reminder on the morning of the final day. By the next morning, when we closed the surveys, the overall completion rate had reached 89%, with 100% of the participants and managers submitting their responses. Along the way, we provided the clients with updated rates, so that they could also nudge the group behind the scenes.
Examples of Survey Notifications, 360 Surveys, and Reminder Emails
Step 5: Reporting
Build a report that makes it easy for participants to see where their relative strengths and weaknesses are and what to do about them.
n designing the report, we prioritized usability above all else. We wanted these RSMs to be able to interpret their results, prioritize their relative strengths and weaknesses, and get to real development ideas quickly.
Excerpts from a 360 Report
Too many reports require a PhD to interpret. We wanted the technical details to fade into the background and allow the insights to jump off the page. We focused on three things:
VISUALIZATION. We worked with our Creative Director to design data visualization charts that would be insightful and easy to interpret. One example is the competency map—or “blob chart”—that intuitively shows how the participant’s skills compare to each other and where the patterns are.
PRIORITIZATION. Though calculated scores were displayed, the report focused attention on the ranking of each skill, which helps prioritize.
RECOMMENDATIONS. For the top 3 highest-ranked skills and the lowest 3, the report dynamically provided recommendations for how to leverage strengths and shore up weaknesses.
Step 6: Readouts
Conduct readout sessions with the participants to help them interpret results, prioritize development needs, and brainstorm development strategies.
We scheduled a 45-minute video conference call with each RSM for one of our Readout Coaches to go over their report with the RSM, answer their questions, help them interpret the results, and then help them transition into development planning. Where RSMs needed the most help was in prioritizing their particular development needs, getting them down to 1-3 goals for the year.
360 Coaching Sessions for Pattern Spotting and Development Prioritization
PATTERN SPOTTING. A value-added service that our coaches provided was helping the RSMs identify patterns that emerged from comparing and contrasting different sections of the report.
The main section focused on RSM Competencies and Skills, but other sections focused on leadership qualities, potential derailer behaviors, Net Promoter Scores, and, lastly, free text comments. Each section contained insights, but when looked at from a 50,000-foot view, there were patterns that cut across the sections, and it was usually these patterns that represented the highest-priority development needs.
For example, one RSM’s Innovation skills were rated very low, while the next lowest was People Management. The Leadership Qualities section pointed to a strong tendency towards dominance behaviors, and this RSM’s worst Potential Derailer behaviors related to being closed off to ideas. From the Net Promoter section, they saw that the Colleagues and Employees had the lowest NPS.
In the Stop-Start-Continue section, comments from the RSM’s sales reps, such as “Don’t be so quick to shut down our ideas,” reinforced this pattern that this RSM was perhaps closed off to new ideas and ways of doing things, and that this was having a stifling effect on the team.
Once the RSM and Coach were able to identify and talk through that higher-level pattern and how that pattern affected the RSM’s success, the priorities crystallized. For us, that’s where the magic happens.
Step 7: Pull-Through
Share updates and high-level results with the leadership team, engage closely on next steps, and nudge them to coach their coaches.
As we wrapped up the last of our RSM calls, we asked our Readout Coaches to summarize the themes coming out of those calls, then we met with the Sales leadership team to go over the high-level results, themes, and next steps.
Although some of the sales executives had questions about individual RSMs, we tried to keep our discussions more strategic. We provided reporting, for example, that showed the most common Top 3 strengths and Bottom 3 weaknesses that came up in the 360 reports, which would give the leadership team a sense of what skills they might target for group training.
Coming out of the 360 process, each RSM felt energized, walking away with clear development priorities and specific, concrete ideas for improvement. The challenge now was maintaining the momentum to achieve tangible business results.
Our solution included:
A PLANNING MEETING. The next step for the RSMs would be to draft an Individual Development Plan (IDP), which describes specific action steps, due dates, and resources needed to achieve their development goals. They would then schedule a planning meeting with their manager to review the draft IDP, discuss it, and align on it.
IDP CHECK-INS. After the planning meeting, there is a tendency for participants to shelve the IDP and move on to other pressing matters, letting their development collect dust. We challenged the Sales leadership team to schedule quarterly IDP Check-Ins with their RSMs to provide the encouragement and support needed to ensure progress towards goals.
TEAM DEVELOPMENT. In an organization where there is a learning culture, professional development is treated like a team sport. With that in mind, we recommended to the Sales leadership team that they build Team Development Plans for their respective RSM group, emphasizing things they could do as a team to mentor each other on critical skills and provide ongoing support.
A Timeline of Pull-Through Activities After 360 Reports
Design Principles at Work
This case study illustrates the real-world application of four design principles to 360 feedback programs:
- Psychological Safety. Unless people feel comfortable sharing candid feedback about their coworkers through the 360-feedback process we’ve designed, the program cannot possibly achieve any meaningful business results. Either people will ignore and avoid the surveys, or they will respond with timid answers, all high marks, and no constructive feedback that the participant can use to help them grow. Creating enough psychological safety for respondents to be brave and candid requires aligning everyone on ground rules that protect confidentiality and data usage.
- Prioritize Prioritization. The reports need to help the participant prioritize what’s most important: the relative strengths that they can leverage and turn into superpowers, and the relative weaknesses they should strengthen to avoid getting derailed. There is considerable debate as to whether someone should prioritize playing to their strengths or closing up skill gaps, but the report should show both and allow the participant, their coach, and their manager to decide the best path forward.
- Practical Guidance. Prioritizing WHAT skills, traits, and behaviors to target for development is critical, but the next step will be to decide HOW best to achieve those goals. The reports should provide practical, concrete recommendations for how to leverage strengths and shore up weaknesses, targeted at the skills, traits, and behaviors that are most relevant to participants’ results. If the participant cannot easily go from understanding the results to defining an action plan, the process grinds to a halt.
- Pull-Through, Pull-Through!!! Coming out of the 360-feedback process, participants are always enthusiastic about making impactful changes, but that momentum quickly wanes in the face of a million tactical and operational matters that dominate their schedules. So, it is incumbent on the leadership team that sponsors the 360 feedback to take steps to maintain the energy and focus, pulling the 360 results through into a game plan (the IDP), following up on progress, and normalizing learning within their team.
We’d love to hear your perspective on this and other ways to make workplace training more effective and impactful. Drop us a line!