Ever wondered why your efforts to improve team relationships haven't yielded much fruit? You might be missing a crucial element: honest feedback. This episode, led by Sean, a performance coach and special operations combat veteran, will tackle the complex world of the 360 review. We'll dig into the hurdles of not only getting genuine feedback but also properly interpreting it, particularly when past experiences and biases become the yardstick for current evaluations. I'll also reveal how I've helped my clients navigate through these challenges, ensuring they make meaningful strides in their leadership roles.
That's not all - we'll also be turning the spotlight on the delicate balance between conceptual and practical change. How do you move from the realm of ideas to the concrete world of action? It's a collective journey that involves the coach, the client, and the people around them. We'll talk about the potential missteps when focusing too much on either the conceptual or action-oriented aspects of change. And, importantly, we'll examine the hard task of long-term transformation, reminding you of the necessity to understand the origins of old behaviors to successfully transition to new ones. Join us for this insightful episode and don't forget to like, share, and subscribe!
Are you an executive, entrepreneur, or combat veteran looking to overcome subconscious blind spots and limiting messaging to unlock your highest performance? Feel free to reach out to Sean at Reload Coaching and Consulting.
Ever wondered why your efforts to improve team relationships haven't yielded much fruit? You might be missing a crucial element: honest feedback. This episode, led by Sean, a performance coach and special operations combat veteran, will tackle the complex world of the 360 review. We'll dig into the hurdles of not only getting genuine feedback but also properly interpreting it, particularly when past experiences and biases become the yardstick for current evaluations. I'll also reveal how I've helped my clients navigate through these challenges, ensuring they make meaningful strides in their leadership roles.
That's not all - we'll also be turning the spotlight on the delicate balance between conceptual and practical change. How do you move from the realm of ideas to the concrete world of action? It's a collective journey that involves the coach, the client, and the people around them. We'll talk about the potential missteps when focusing too much on either the conceptual or action-oriented aspects of change. And, importantly, we'll examine the hard task of long-term transformation, reminding you of the necessity to understand the origins of old behaviors to successfully transition to new ones. Join us for this insightful episode and don't forget to like, share, and subscribe!
Are you an executive, entrepreneur, or combat veteran looking to overcome subconscious blind spots and limiting messaging to unlock your highest performance? Feel free to reach out to Sean at Reload Coaching and Consulting.
Welcome to the reload, where we help unconventional leaders craft the life they truly want by questioning the assumptions they have about how life works. My name is Sean and I'll be your host on this journey. As a performance coach and special operations combat veteran, I help high performing executives kick ass in their careers while connecting with deeply powerful insights that fuel their lives. Alright, welcome to part two of the understanding the 360 review topic. So last week we ended up discussing the primary benefits that I've seen in terms of conducting a 360. And so today I thought it would be beneficial for us to dive into some of the challenges that come with the process, not just in terms of getting it done, but then also making sure that we actually carry out the things that we learn. So I mentioned this last time, and this is definitely true Getting honest feedback, I think, is first and foremost one of the difficulties that shows up whenever we start to contemplate doing a 360.
Speaker 1:And especially in situations where perhaps the client, in this case some sort of leader, whether it's the CEO, president, vice president, whatever that the person at times may have created some pretty I don't know friction rich relationships on the team, and that can happen for any number of reasons which typically begins to showcase in the coaching engagement itself. But obviously one of the contexts that we typically operate under when we are doing a 360 is that the engagement is new or hasn't started yet, and that the 360 is in many ways shaping the trajectory of the engagement as a whole. So if you are the boss or leader or manager, or however you characterize yourself, that has had some pretty rough experiences with the people on your team, then you probably shouldn't be surprised if individuals are unwilling to provide honest feedback. And as a coach, the way that I know that that's showing up is when I start to ask questions around what could be improved or just blatantly where the problem areas. If I don't get any information back, or if people tell me, oh no, everything's fine, but then they're also not coming at me with a bunch of really glowing reviews about how things are going really well and there's not a sort of positive demeanor in the person that I'm interviewing. Well, that's usually a tip off that things are not going so well and they just don't feel comfortable saying anything. So in a lot of corporate environments when 360s are done, especially when you are starting to get the information from subordinates, then that's where you can really have like a major gap right, and so a lot of people are really good at managing up, they're okay at managing sideways and they're usually pretty shitty at managing down. So that's the first hurdle. Additionally, in terms of getting honest feedback, there's kind of a more, I guess, logistical side of this, which is just getting people's time.
Speaker 1:Often, when we do go through 360s at least the way that I do them, which admittedly is a bit anomalous most of the time, 360s these days are digital surveys and sometimes there's fields for people to sort of write in their comments so that they can provide additional context. Typically this is done for time, efficiency and cost savings. Now, the reason that I also add in live interviews is because there's information and additional richness, I guess, to people's feedback that comes out when you get to have a live conversation with someone where you get to go back and forth a little bit and ask clarifying questions, and that even in situations where there are 360s that provide comment fields, you're not going to get that same level of dynamic feedback. So, again, that's going to come at a cost. Right, that's going to come at a cost financially in terms of more time that the coach is spending doing the 360, but then also it's going to come at a cost of the respondents time, and you know. So. Now not only are they filling out a digital survey, but they're also then having a live conversation, and so one of the things that sponsors are often trying to gauge or assess is how much of the team's time do I want to occupy with this exercise?
Speaker 1:Now, moving on to the second major obstacle, and that is interpreting the feedback. So when we look at interpreting the feedback, there is, I guess, first and foremost, the difficulty that comes with actually just trying to figure out what people mean. Now, again, that's one of the benefits of having those live conversations, especially if you've already done the digital portion of the survey ahead of time. But then, even with total clarity on what people mean, there's difficulty when it comes to trying to contextualize on a time frame. Now, what do I mean by that? What I mean is that often relationships, or the quality of a relationship, are not predicated on a single snapshot.
Speaker 1:They are a running accumulation of how somebody feels about how things are going and in many instances, especially when it comes to subordinates, if they've had a lot of negative interactions upfront, then that can generally sort of cast a pall on the tone or the character of the relationship as a whole. And one of the things that I often end up dealing with when it comes to how clients are improving is that the people around them are slow to recognize. Now they may recognize that there are individual instances where the client has improved, but they are often in a sense holding their breath to try to understand or to try to see is this really a change, or is this person just temporarily doing things differently? And then, as soon as the coach is out of the picture or the pressure comes back on you know, maybe it's a certain time of year in the business cycle or what have you then the person will revert. In this case the client will revert back to old habits and sort of counterproductive behaviors.
Speaker 1:So the feedback that comes into the 360 is often colored by the experiences of the past and whatever biases were formed in those early days of a relationship. So trying to understand okay, how are we doing today? Is often a bit tricky. And, to be clear, I guess most of this interpretation problem shows up whenever I do a refresh on a 360 or a progress check. I guess you could say and so in that scenario, you know, we really are facing a difficulty trying to understand, okay, well, you know, is the respondent seeing the client as they are today, or is there still this vision of how they once were Now, on top of that, when it comes to interpreting feedback, there are instances where People will make comments Specifying okay, you know, yeah, it was a really rough time in the company's history and we really did need a leader that was gonna, like, take charge and and really sort of have a very, very hands-on approach.
Speaker 1:But I don't, I want that to go away and and so part of this is trying to understand okay, well, what, what guidance should the client be taking away from that comment? Is the guidance that times have changed and now we need to sort of revise the way that we're doing things? Or is the guidance that, with that particular respondent, they don't work that well in that sort of managerial relationship, because there may be other people on the team that really do think that a strong Sort of very direct, very, you know, involved presence is still required, based on where the company is currently at. So that's another part of it is is really interpreting individual variances from one respondent to another in terms of how they perceive the prompts and the questions that are actually in the 360. And, again, you know, that's part of the reason why I feel it's useful to actually have live conversation with respondents and not just to go off of black and white digital surveys. Now, a third part around interpreting the feedback is Really and I alluded to this last week is this idea of how do I, as the coach, help the client focus on a limited number of things that they can actually take action on to improve.
Speaker 1:So we're not trying to boil the ocean and we are certainly not attempting to distract the client so that they are just constantly Flipping from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, because then they're gonna get exhausted, they're gonna get worn out, they're not really gonna make productive use of the engagement and they're probably not gonna have enough focus to drive anything to completion. So there's an element in there and if you are working with a coach, or if you're about to start working with a coach and you're a, 360 is part of that process. It's something that you want to talk about with the coach. What is, what is the coach's philosophy or how is it they're gonna be approaching distilling the information that they receive into a limited number of actionable areas, because every time that I've done a 360, you are inundated with information, and a good a bit of it is One-off, outlier information that is specific to one individual. Now, for me, it's really about trying to find what are the common patterns or the common themes that that. Sure, there may be various transactions or happenstances that went into that larger pattern, but how do we focus the client's attention on what the pattern is and not be so I Don't know, so distracted with? Oh well, then there was this one time at bandcamp, and you know that we actually can understand that any sort of tangible example or transactional example is there to support the larger concept.
Speaker 1:Now, the third major area of challenge when it comes to 360s is acting on the feedback, and in this regard, I Already mentioned how the respondents to the 360 often are kind of Waiting to try to see. Is this real behavior change? Is this really the person becoming a new leader, a different leader, or are they just gonna, I Guess, play nice for a while as long as the coach is around and Then they're gonna go back to the way they were. Or, as the other example I mentioned, if there is a particularly stressful part of their year, are they gonna revert back because of the pressures that are involved? Now, the reality you, from what I've seen with any human being is that if you are under enough pressure, you are most likely going to revert to whatever you have been doing. The longest. Part of the reason why I coach people for a full year during their first engagement with me is to really try to lock in a new way of doing things. But even if I'm working with somebody for a full year, that's probably not enough to counteract 30, 40, sometimes 50 years of doing things a certain way.
Speaker 1:So, with that challenge in mind, part of this is to try to understand okay, how can we have sufficient inner transformation and what are the extending behaviors that come from that inner transformation?
Speaker 1:What is the new way of being and feeling going to look like, based on whatever inner transformation the client is attempting to achieve? And how is it that we begin to really truly assess that the client's doing that on a regular basis and that it's becoming an ingrained part of them and not just something that they have to consciously focus on? And so there are these, I guess, four phases of competence. You are unconsciously incompetent, you are consciously incompetent and you are consciously competent, and then you are unconsciously competent, basically saying, in the beginning you don't know what you don't know. Then next, you begin to recognize oh wow, there's a lot that I don't know. And then the third phase is okay, I can do this, this new way of being, this new way of acting or behaving, but only when I really have my attention on it. And as soon as my attention wavers, then I revert back to the way that I was. And then, with sufficient time and practice and really embedding internally the changes and the transformations that you wanted to make, then all of a sudden you're able to be the new way without having to focus on it.
Speaker 1:It is now the quote unquote new normal, and making sure that that actually happens is not just the coach's job, but it's also the people around the client and the client's job to interact and to ask for feedback and follow up. How am I doing? This is one of the things that I was trying to change about the way that I show up on the team or at home or whatever. How am I doing? Is it going well, is it trending in the right direction? Do you see any major challenges to really cementing this? Or, from your perspective, does it? Do you see certain gaps? Is there a certain setting or context, or maybe an issue or a person where I really seem to revert backward? And these are all discussions that can lead to a lot of really positive information and, of course, in some settings I'll do a 360 refresh to help people really see yeah, okay, we did a 360 in the beginning, we just did a refresh here halfway through and here are the remaining issues.
Speaker 1:Those are really the main ways in which we can start to solidify, turning conceptual items into practical action, and this is one of the things that I think gets lost quite frequently. Or, better said, when a coach operates on only one end of the spectrum, there is the potential for a lot to be left on the table. So oftentimes, if you get coaches who have a more I don't know more of, like a kind of a spiritual bent to them, they often focus so heavily on the concept and the feeling that they minimize or they neglect. How do we put this into action? What does this physically look like in your life? Conversely, a lot of executive coaches, a lot of leadership coaches. They will focus heavily to the exclusion of the other side of the spectrum, on action. What are the behaviors that need to change? And are you doing that? Just black and white.
Speaker 1:And the problem there is that when we solely focus on the behavior that needs to change and you tell the client essentially, I don't know, you need to have greater emotional intelligence when you do your one-on-ones with your teammates, your team members, and this is what greater emotional intelligence looks like for this person, that person, the other person, etc. Etc. If the client doesn't fully understand what is keeping them from having a behavior that demonstrates greater emotional intelligence, and what do we say? I mean? What do we mean when we say emotional intelligence? Usually we're talking about folks that have empathy. They have a certain willingness to be open. They have a certain willingness to also receive feedback in return, whether that's about their own performance or whether that's an opposing view about how a particular topic is being presented, they're able to receive disagreement. And so if somewhere deep inside the client, they have a major hang-up and most human beings have major hang-ups in certain areas of their life, including the guy talking to you right now and it's those major hang-ups that we do best to understand the source of them, not so that we can just sit there and navel, gaze and linger, but so that we have a sense of where did this come from?
Speaker 1:What is the situation or the context in which this particular dynamic first came about? Why is it that I put so much importance and emphasis on this, such that it shows up unconsciously in my behavior and prevents me from showing up a different way? So it's this combination of knowing both sides of that spectrum of understanding. Okay, this is the context. This is why I've invested so much of this, so much of myself, into this being a certain way, this identity that I possess. And then, if I want to do it differently, this is what it will physically look like, this is what it will feel like internally to do things differently.
Speaker 1:And ultimately, if it doesn't feel better to do it the new way, it's not going to happen. It may happen for a very limited amount of time, but that is typically when people revert is because they're not fully bought into. The new way of doing things is good for me, it feels good, it's good for the people around me, it feels good to them and that this path, this new path, is the way. And generally, until people have really started to understand, okay, what put me on the old path in the first place, then they're unable, and in some cases unwilling, to really make that transition happen. But once they understand the context and they understand, okay, what's going to go into doing it differently, and then they can clearly articulate yeah, okay, these are the things that would physically change and this is how people in my life will know that it's different. And this is the behavior that I need to focus on in order for it to stay different. And here are the triggers in my psyche that, if they present themselves, I need to be especially aware so that I don't allow myself to revert Until that whole picture is clear to somebody.
Speaker 1:Then you're generally not going to get long-term transformation and recognize that you know most people, including you, are very busy people and they're trying to fit this inner transformation in, while they're also doing a lot of other things, and that, I would say, is one other big challenge to acting on the feedback that comes from A360. So I get to run off to another call, but I hope that this episode was helpful for you. If it was, and you think it's a fair exchange, I'd love it, love it, love it, love it. If you would like, subscribe, thumbs up or you know whatever we're doing these days and obviously share it. Share it with people that you think would benefit If it resonated with you. It's probably going to be good for people just like you that you work and live with or don't. I mean, it's totally up to you, but until next time, take care of each other.