Maximizing the Value of 360-degree Feedback: A Process for Successful Individual and Organizational Development

Despite the burgeoning popularity of 360-degree feedback for rating work performance, few people have a detailed understanding of how it can be used to enhance, even maximize, individual and organizational development. This standard-setting manual draws on the twenty-eight-year expertise the Center for Creative Leadership brings to the subject to give HR managers, consultants, and systems designers the big-picture guidance they need to determine if 360-degree feedback is right for their organization and, if so, to implement it.

Readers will discover how they can use 360-degree feedback as a tool for achieving a variety of objectives such as communicating performance expectations, setting developmental goals, establishing a learning culture, and tracking the effects of organizational change. Comprehensive guidelines show how 360-degree feedback can be designed to maximize employee involvement, self-determination, and commitment. Includes case examples and a bevy of instructive instruments.

About the Editors

Walter W. Tornow is a senior fellow and former vice president for research and publication at the Center for Creative Leadership. He received his Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology from the University of Minnesota. Walt is a licensed consulting psychologist, certified as a senior professional in human resources. He has had extensive applied research, consulting, teaching, and management experience, including executive positions at Control Data Corporation. He was a board member of the Human Resource Certification Institute of the Society for Human Resource Management. Walt has published widely on human resources management issues, including executive and management jobs, performance management, service quality, assessment technologies, and the "changing psychological contract". His 1993 edited special issue on 360-degree feedback for the Human Resource Management Journal was one of the first publications to bring together extant research and practice on 360-degree feedback.

Manuel London is an adjunct research fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership. He received his B.A. in psychology and philosophy from Case Western Reserve University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology from The Ohio State University. Manny taught at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana for three years. He then was a researcher and human resources manager at AT&T for twelve years before assuming his present position as director of the Center for Human Resource Management at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is the author of several books, including Change Agents: New Roles and Innovation Strategies for Human Resource Professionals published by Jossey-Bass in 1988. He has conducted research on upward feedback, 360-degree feedback, and, more broadly, management development and career motivation. His practice and writing have also focused on human resources contributions to organization change and development. His recent review of 360-degree feedback theory and research (with James Smither in Personnel Psychology, 1995) provided a framework for understanding how managers process 360-degree feedback.