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Is the legal sector ready for 360 Degree Feedback?

Originally, the idea behind feedback in the workplace was to make it immediate and motivating; factory managers would turn a wooden block, hanging above a worker’s head, either Red or Green depending on whether they were happy with their productivity; immediate for sure, the jury is still out on its motivational power!

In this article we look at the process commonly known as '360 Degree Feedback', or 'Multi-Rater Feedback' and consider whether the traditional route to partnership for lawyers lends itself to such a practice.

For lawyers keen to secure the desired status of partner, we examine what negative beliefs may exist in a process where they are invited to give honest feedback on colleagues and partners. Can it ever be open if it is believed that it may jeopardise their progress within the firm? If it isn’t open, then what is the point?

By considering the benefits inherent in providing individuals with real feedback on their performance and consequent development needs, we ask if these negative beliefs can be overcome and by what means.

We finish with a checklist which tests a firm’s readiness to introduce multi-rater feedback and which will offer guidance as to how a firm can successfully implement the process without having people reluctantly accept it.

The concept of giving feedback to employees about their performance is now widely practiced in every sector, very often in the form of the much maligned 'Performance Appraisal', where once a year the ‘Line Manager’ will tell the appraisee a few home truths as they see it, raise pay in line with inflation and send them out suitably deflated or indifferent.

Naturally by contrast, the process can be thoroughly uplifting, the manager praises the individual where appropriate, constructively suggests ways to improve and pay is reviewed in line with objectives achieved.

With such extreme ends of the spectrum, it is not surprising that organisations find themselves somewhere in-between, and more often than not are trying to move towards a system which provides accurate, honest and useful feedback to the individual whilst supporting their business objectives.

It was the US Military that first introduced the concept of 'Peer Review', the notion being that it was your ‘buddies’ around you that really saw you in action every day and that leaving it solely to the immediate superior to comment was inadequate.

What has subsequently developed within business is the 'Annual Performance Appraisal' which is as a process seeking to connect the organisational objectives with defined personal targets and 'competency based 360 Degree Feedback' which looks to seek feedback from significant parties on the behaviours exhibited by a person as they seek to achieve their organisational objectives.

The key differences are that typically the Performance Appraisal focuses on 'what' is achieved whereas the 360 process is concerned with 'how' it was achieved, and has been noted already the latter would usually invite feedback from multiple sources.

High achievers will often find themselves on the receiving end of a glowing performance review; they hit targets, they meet objectives, but at what cost? A multi-rater, competency based, feedback approach suddenly highlights the impact their behaviour has on those around them, and the results can be eye-opening.

So why do it? The growing body of evidence suggests that 360 feedback allows individuals to develop more effectively, creates a more open form of communication within the work environment, enhances teamwork, and can assist in establishing cultural change programmes. Most of us operate in 'feedback poor' environments and yet a person’s professional and personal development is strongly linked to the feedback they receive.

If the individual is carefully debriefed with this valuable feedback, they can digest it, review and decide if they need to change certain behaviours or undertake training to tackle those issues that are considered detrimental to their or the firm’s performance, whilst enjoying the positive feedback too. With some software supported solutions, organisations can review consolidated information to identify more general training needs for the firm.

This moves us to consider then the 360 Degree process within the legal sector given the form of patronage that exists with law firms, whereby lawyers progression to partnership status often over 9 or 10 years, is dependent naturally on their ability to perform technically, but also on their relationships with the support staff, peer group and most importantly the partners themselves who endorse or veto their acceptance into the partner fold.

There would be two possible scenarios; the first being their own appraisal where perhaps self-disclosure would be difficult as they might feel highlighting areas of ‘weakness’ would colour partners perceptions and jeopardise their progress.

The second scenario is where they provide feedback on a partner, to offer what might be construed as criticism, even if framed constructively. This is where the real fear can exist in telling the persons who could be instrumental in your promotion to partnership, that their communication is ‘Very Poor’; instinctively it feels wrong.

These are no different to the fears that manifest themselves in other industry sectors; they just have a different form and are apparent when the 360 Feedback is used as part of a performance review which is pay related.

So what should be the goal of 360 Degree Feedback? It’s our belief that it should only ever be for developmental purposes; forging any links with salary review or in the case of law firms, partnership eligibility, will kill the process.

Introducing anonymity appears to offer a neat solution to the fear that being identified by a partner may harm ones progress in the firm. However, it can also serve to fuel a deeper sense of mistrust and help create an environment where people spend more time and energy on 'who' said something rather than 'what' was said; the feedback is lost.

What will drive this desire to have anonymity will ultimately be a product of a firms culture; in the end, each firm needs to assess its own culture and levels of trust, and consequently opt for the processes and procedures that gain the best feedback possible for their staff.

The firm can implement multi-rater feedback in a way that actually helps to create the best environment for feedback & trust in the process; they can ensure it is purely for developmental needs, they can allow the individual to choose their raters, they can make the process confidential in that the individual owns the feedback and shares it only with a 'Coach' and they can effectively train everyone in how to appraise and handle being appraised, so that it is a positive experience.

It can be migrated on-line, so there is a secure log-in and data is centrally stored, rather than have paper-based forms which can sit unattended on desks.

Nigel McEwen, a former managing partner and now an executive coach, specialising in professional services coaching says.

"360 degree appraisals can be a very powerful force for change and improvement. They provide feedback from a number of different sources , hopefully with objectivity and can be presented in print. They accordingly provide the type of evidence that lawyers like to receive and with which they are familiar. This makes them comfortable and therefore more receptive to the comments. Well-planned 360 degree appraisals establish clear areas of strength and areas which require some improvement. They provide a base line for performance and they have a particular use in evaluating training and coaching investment undertaking the 360 degree appraisal both before and after the training has taken place identifies successful outcomes ."

In summary, the answer to the question of whether the legal sector is ready for 360 Degree Feedback is not unsurprisingly pre-fixed by 'Yes, but only if…' and these caveats are:

Adhering to these simple rules can introduce a process which serves both the effective skills development of the individual, and generates a level of self-awareness that can only promote wider benefits to the growth of their firm.

Author:
John Rice, Director, Bowland Solutions
On-line Performance Review and 360 Degree Feedback solutions
www.bowlandsolutions.com

Contributor:
Nigel McEwen, Managing Director, Cresco
Executive Coaching
www.cresco-uk.com