Co-founder and government chairman of Netflix Reed Hastings will get an annual 360-review by way of written evaluation to which any worker can contribute. He wrote about his 2019 evaluation in his e-book No Guidelines Guidelines: Netflix and the Tradition of Reinvention, observing, “I discover the very best feedback for my progress are sadly probably the most painful.”
In a memo to staff, he thanked them for stating how he skipped or rushed over subjects he felt weren’t well worth the time. He acknowledged these observations had been, “So true, so unhappy, so irritating that I nonetheless do that. I’ll maintain engaged on it.”
Leaders akin to Hastings asking for suggestions—and even additional taking it to coronary heart to implement change—requires vulnerability. Bob Weinhold, a Velocity associate who leads the agency’s government teaching providers and focuses on multigenerational household enterprises and company environments, has seen this firsthand. Once we spoke, he was touring to begin an government teaching engagement with somebody who had not obtained suggestions properly. He had additionally simply accomplished a name with one other government who was pushing again towards suggestions from her workforce.
“I believe suggestions could be extremely useful, and I’ve watched it’s extremely damning. When it’s achieved the incorrect approach, individuals really feel threatened. They develop into very defensive, and it turns into a purpose to exit a state of affairs or a enterprise or a relationship prior to creating any modifications,” he says. “When [feedback is] achieved proper, individuals get to the very highest ranges. When achieved poorly, it leads to very destructive penalties, and typically terminal penalties.”
Of their research “Suggestions: the Highly effective Paradox,” Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman describe suggestions as “any dialog designed to convey a message that one particular person believes to be necessary for one more particular person to listen to.” They acknowledge that “giving and receiving suggestions in organizations is a posh and unpredictable course of.”
To navigate this unpredictable setting, Weinhold prescribes a particular course of to create a receptive setting, ask for suggestions and implement the recommendation.
Establishing the setting for suggestions
Govt coaches and consultancies can facilitate the suggestions course of. “After I was a CEO, I may go ask everybody within the group, ‘What do you consider me?’ Would they inform me I’m a jerk? No, as a result of they’re afraid they’re gonna get fired,” Weinhold says. Bringing in an exterior agency provides a layer of confidentiality to offset this energy differential.
If leaders are working with out an middleman, Weinhold recommends establishing context. It’s necessary to say that “you’re on a progress course of. It’s going to be exhausting for them to present you direct suggestions, however you’ll do all the pieces in your energy to not maintain that towards them.”
Asking for suggestions
To solicit opinions, Weinhold recommends utilizing each an off-the-cuff and formal 360-degree evaluation course of. The standard course of entails inviting individuals to finish an nameless on-line questionnaire. It’s useful to request feedback from individuals beneath, lateral to and above the chief on the organizational chart.
There are three very important inquiries to ask:
1. The place do I add worth?
2. If you happen to had been to choose two or three areas that you just suppose I ought to deal with that may permit me to ship higher worth or efficiency, what would these areas be?
3. Is there anything I ought to know after I’m contemplating my very own efficiency?
Following this, casual, one-on-one conversations can increase upon the data supplied within the formal evaluation. “I encourage individuals to … a) ask for [conversations with] individuals that you just agree with, b) ask for [conversations with] folks that completely don’t agree with you, after which [c)] discover the right combination within the center,” Weinhold says. “Your job is to extrapolate from absolutely the worth of that knowledge.”
Assessing the suggestions
Earlier than contemplating the suggestions, it’s useful to endure a self-assessment and establish progress areas. Then, with suggestions in hand, leaders can assess whether or not that data is congruent or incongruent with their self-identified progress paths. Subsequent, the chief ought to take into account whether or not the suggestions goes to assist their job or position, the corporate at giant and the opposite individuals concerned to prioritize what they are going to implement.
Lastly, they need to set tangible targets. For instance, if somebody receives suggestions that they have to be extra “likeable,” that’s obscure. So, they might take into account setting workplace hours, participating in additional social time with colleagues and/or attending extra work features to reply to this suggestions. It’s necessary to vocally establish these targets to colleagues and staff. On this instance, that would imply saying, “I’m engaged on my relationships with different individuals, so that you’re going to see me being concerned differently. Let me know if that feels good or if it feels intrusive or pretend.”
Weinhold says that, for those who implement suggestions the correct approach, you’ll be able to leverage relationships, enterprise, efficiency, observe and progress quicker than you ever may with out it.
If the suggestions is wholly destructive, then the questions get more durable. Weinhold invitations the chief to contemplate whether or not they can implement the requested modifications or if the issue is a matter of match with the corporate or the position.
Following up
As soon as a pacesetter commits to accepting and implementing suggestions, Weinhold recommends following up—rather more continuously than an annual 360-review. As a substitute, he suggests touching base quarterly with a handful of people that gave the preliminary suggestions. If the chief isn’t going via a coach, he suggests they strategy chosen people and share what they’re engaged on earlier than requesting a follow-up dialog to debate outcomes. As a result of this presents an extra encumbrance for the particular person offering suggestions, it could assist to sweeten the deal by providing to purchase espresso or lunch.
Weinhold acknowledges that almost all evaluations don’t produce outcomes as a result of individuals cease on the anger and the frustration and the judgment. “I might say suggestions is extremely useful, however it may be weaponized. Or it may be utilized as a automobile for progress, and that’s the piece that most individuals miss,” he says.
In spite of everything, as Hastings writes in his e-book, “It’s when staff start offering truthful suggestions to their leaders that the massive advantages of candor actually take off.”
This text initially appeared within the Could/June 2025 situation of SUCCESS+ Journal. Photograph courtesy of PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock.