Possible Outcomes
We are at present conducting two kinds of formal research on the effects of enhanced 360-degree feedback. First, we have done overall evaluations, two or more years after the initial feedback, that assess the changes (if any) that have occurred during that period. Four such studies have been conducted thus far. Second, we have done developmental studies in which we take periodic readings as the process of change unfolds. Five such studies are currently underway. As with the original research that led to this approach to executive development (Kaplan, 1991, pp. 57-58; Kaplan, Drath, & Kofodimos, 1991, pp. 243-246), this is action-research—the data are used both for research purposes and for the benefit of the client. In addition to formal research, we have logged over a twelve-year period a great deal of practical experience using this approach.
What are the chances of bringing about actual improvement in executives using enhanced feedback? The chances appear to be good that executives can make modest, yet nonetheless significant, changes in behavior. The changes make a difference because the insights are internalized. In our view, these changes are accompanied by an internal shift that leads the individual and others to feel that the changes are real—not cosmetic—and likely to last. This is the crucial test: Do participants, and the people who know them, feel the differences are authentic? Consider one executive’s reflection: “I heard [in the feedback] that I needed to behave differently. What I found after the next few weeks was there was a side of me that hadn’t found a place in business. I needed to unlock that place. Rather than merely act differently—that would have been shallow—I had to be different.”
One development need that we typically encounter in executives, even those who are in good standing, is the necessity to be less forceful. One such individual was described as an “elemental force of nature.” In our view, the problem comes when they become too “expansive”—too big a personality, too aggressive or controlling or forceful in pursuit of objectives, too willing to work extremely long hours and to expect the same of others, too impressed with their own expertise and knowledge and not receptive enough to inputs from others, too ambitious for themselves, too ambitious for their organizations (Kaplan, 1991). The list could go on.
Tim Foley (not his real name) is an executive who, over a period of several years and with the impetus of enhanced feedback, moderated his overly expansive style and temperament. Hardworking, hard-driving, and hard-edged in his dealings with people, he had been someone who, according to a superior, “got great results but nobody was here to play tomorrow.” In a revisit in which we interviewed twenty of his co-workers three years after the feedback, the rating of his effectiveness on a ten-point scale went up two points. The reason: He was no longer so rough on people and he was more inclined to give them the freedom they needed to do their jobs. The perception of the change in his behavior was accompanied by a sense of an inner change. People remarked that he seemed to have “mellowed” somewhat, that he was “more at ease with himself.” This corresponded to Foley’s own sense that he had grown more confident and therefore no longer needed to grip the reins so tightly—although he was still intensely results-oriented. He was a force that top management felt it could count on for results, but in tempering his style, he did less damage in obtaining those results and in fact increased his productivity by giving his subordinates a greater opportunity to contribute.
Also figuring in the change he made was a new assignment in a completely different part of the company. He took this right after the feedback and was able to start with a clean slate. To cap this, he received a coveted promotion that, according to top management, he would not have received if he had not changed. The outcomes were inspiring but the experience of change was not without discomfort. In the month or two after the feedback, Foley said he felt “as if his fingertips had been sanded down” to the point of painful self-consciousness.
In our experience with enhanced feedback, the chances increase that executives are able to improve their performance at work because they truly internalize the need for change. A subset of the participants actually achieve what we term a character shift (Kaplan, 1990). A person’s psychological makeup is durable, but this kind of intervention is potent enough to open up the possibility of a modest change—not a total change but rather a partial realignment of one’s inner world. What shifts is the executive’s values—what the individual deems important versus unimportant, his or her pattern of emotional investments, what he or she puts energy into.
In the years that we have been associated with enhanced feedback, involving dozens of executives, we know of only two individuals, one of whom we will call Brian Haley, who seemed to have been adversely affected by this activity. But our own experience aside, the fact remains that negative outcomes are well within the realm of possibility. It is critical then that anyone considering enhanced feedback make sure that great care is taken in delivering it.
Learning is often painful, and there is no getting around the fact that enhanced feedback has a certain abrasive action that can hurt. Brian Haley clearly benefited from the experience but he was more distressed by it and stayed unsettled longer than most recipients.
Just before receiving the feedback, he was promoted. He had very much wanted the promotion but, in contrast to the happy coincidence of Tim Foley’s promotion, the timing interacted badly with the feedback.
A high-potential upper-level manager in his early forties, Haley saw himself as CEO material (a view shared by others) and was chronically impatient for the next promotion. Perhaps because he was precocious, he had a tendency to get ahead of himself and so had always felt insecure during the first few months in a new job. Previously, he had been able to suppress the anxiety and actually to turn it into a redoubled effort to do well. In this case his insecurity in the new job was compounded by the “bad grades” he got in the feedback report.
Another factor was Haley’s burning need to perform well and his corresponding fear of not doing so. Life for him was, in many ways, a performance. He turned meetings, especially with his own staff, into a stage on which he could perform, and even in conversations there was a sense of him as not natural because he seemed to be putting on a performance. He was, he came to realize, constantly concerned with impressing people. He was, in fact, impressive in many ways. He was, for example, an exceptional speaker, one of the best in top management—a favorite with investment analysts. But, ironically, his need to impress was a trait that ultimately marred his image.
As bright, knowledgeable, visionary, articulate, hardworking, and polished as he was, he lost credibility by seeming to be overly committed to his own advancement and overly concerned with impressing his superiors. He also seemed to overrely on his own abundant natural talent and, therefore, did not pay enough attention to other people’s ideas, especially those of his peers. That his image turned out to be marred at a time when he was feeling insecure in his job proved distressing to Haley.
Two years later, another survey showed that these tendencies had decreased. There was still room for improvement, but Haley was rated as significantly higher on items like “team player,” “effective with peers,” “empathy,” and “putting the organization’s goals ahead of his own.” The rating of his overall effectiveness as a manager had also gone up. One way to construe the change was that he had become more of a real person, less identified with an image of perfection. At home this was evident in his greater willingness to talk with his wife about his feelings, including the things that bothered him. And it was clear that the reason he had been able to do better was that he had taken the first set of results to heart.
Brian Haley managed in the end to grow and improve but not without significant pain. Once it became apparent, two months after the feedback session, that he was in some distress—and it was not evident in the feedback session—the key was: How would he cope?
Fundamentally, he fell back on his own resources, a considerable resiliency and ego strength that made it possible for him to recognize immediately that he was under stress. Haley gets particular credit for this because he was not deterred by his customary distaste for having problems. Whereas he once had kept problems to himself, in this case he reached out to other people. He turned to his spouse in a way that he never had previously in their fifteen-year marriage. As a result of having personal conversations they did not usually have, the marriage took on an extra measure of closeness.
Haley also turned to his friends and was relieved to discover that some of them had had their own similar struggles. He sought out an expert in stress management and followed that person’s advice to get more exercise and to meditate. And he turned to us. Haley’s wife said later, “You ‘hovered’ and that was very important.”
We did many things to support him. For instance, we helped him see what his distress meant. By reconstructing recent episodes, he could see that the distress stemmed from being afraid that his “act” was crumbling or was in danger of crumbling. So the outbreak of anxiety proved to be a chance for him to open his eyes to how much he had been ruled by performance anxiety. We helped him to look upon the distress as an opportunity to know himself better and to grow.
Our experience is that most executives receive enhanced feedback without undue difficulty. For a few weeks they engage in much more introspection than usual, and they have more conversations about themselves than usual. They are self-aware to the point of being self-conscious. Yet for most participants the stress generated by the mass of data is manageable and almost entirely beneficial and growth-producing. In 1991 we surveyed thirty-six individuals who had participated in this activity at the Center for Creative Leadership from 1986 to 1990. We also interviewed the spouses of several participants. The data turned up no evidence of a serious negative outcome.