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 overview in his e-book No Guidelines Guidelines: Netflix and the Tradition of Reinvention, observing, “I discover the perfect feedback for my progress are sadly essentially the most painful.”
In a memo to staff, he thanked them for stating how he skipped or rushed over subjects he felt weren’t definitely worth the time. He acknowledged these observations have been, “So true, so unhappy, so irritating that I nonetheless do that. I’ll maintain engaged on it.”
Leaders comparable 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. After we spoke, he was touring to start out an government teaching engagement with somebody who had not obtained suggestions nicely. He had additionally simply accomplished a name with one other government who was pushing again in opposition to suggestions from her group.
“I feel suggestions will be extremely precious, and I’ve watched or not it’s extremely damning. When it’s performed the mistaken means, individuals really feel threatened. They develop into very defensive, and it turns into a motive to exit a scenario or a enterprise or a relationship prior to creating any adjustments,” he says. “When [feedback is] performed proper, individuals get to the very highest ranges. When performed poorly, it ends in very damaging penalties, and generally 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 individual believes to be vital for one more individual to listen to.” They acknowledge that “giving and receiving suggestions in organizations is a fancy and unpredictable course of.”
To navigate this unpredictable atmosphere, Weinhold prescribes a particular course of to create a receptive atmosphere, ask for suggestions and implement the recommendation.
Establishing the atmosphere for suggestions
Govt coaches and consultancies can facilitate the suggestions course of. “After I was a CEO, I might 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 vital to say that “you’re on a progress course of. It’s going to be laborious for them to present you direct suggestions, however you’ll do every little thing in your energy to not maintain that in opposition to them.”
Asking for suggestions
To solicit opinions, Weinhold recommends utilizing each a casual and formal 360-degree overview course of. The standard course of includes inviting individuals to finish an nameless on-line questionnaire. It’s precious to request feedback from individuals under, 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. In the event you have been to choose two or three areas that you just suppose I ought to deal with that may enable me to ship higher worth or efficiency, what would these areas be?
3. Is there anything I ought to know once I’m contemplating my very own efficiency?
Following this, casual, one-on-one conversations can develop upon the data provided within the formal overview. “I encourage individuals to … a) ask for [conversations with] individuals that you just agree with, b) ask for [conversations with] those that completely don’t agree with you, after which [c)] discover the correct mix within the center,” Weinhold says. “Your job is to extrapolate from absolutely the worth of that information.”
Assessing the suggestions
Earlier than contemplating the suggestions, it’s precious to bear a self-assessment and establish progress areas. Then, with suggestions in hand, leaders can assess whether or not that info is congruent or incongruent with their self-identified progress paths. Subsequent, the chief ought to think about whether or not the suggestions goes to assist their job or function, the corporate at massive and the opposite individuals concerned to prioritize what they may implement.
Lastly, they need to set tangible objectives. For instance, if somebody receives suggestions that they should be extra “likeable,” that’s imprecise. So, they might think about setting workplace hours, partaking in additional social time with colleagues and/or attending extra work capabilities to reply to this suggestions. It’s vital to vocally establish these objectives 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, if you happen to implement suggestions the fitting means, you may leverage relationships, enterprise, efficiency, observe and progress quicker than you ever might with out it.
If the suggestions is wholly damaging, then the questions get more durable. Weinhold invitations the chief to contemplate whether or not they can implement the requested adjustments or if the issue is a matter of match with the corporate or the function.
Following up
As soon as a frontrunner commits to accepting and implementing suggestions, Weinhold recommends following up—rather more often 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 by way of 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 a further encumbrance for the individual offering suggestions, it might assist to sweeten the deal by providing to purchase espresso or lunch.
Weinhold acknowledges that almost all critiques 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 precious, however it may be weaponized. Or it may be utilized as a car for progress, and that’s the piece that most individuals miss,” he says.
In any case, 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 Might/June 2025 concern of SUCCESS+ Journal. Picture courtesy of PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock.
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