We have had a very positive experience working with Organized Change. They designed a survey for one of our global teams to help design an organizational change and develop scenarios for our strategies. Organized Change is a dependable collaborator who can be relied upon to help us meet our goals.
It’s interesting to note in our decade how little some things have changed in the last two decades about 360 degree feedback (where management receives feedback on their management style from a variety of different sources, including subordinates, peers and their boss) and coaching.
The process is rarely customized to the client, and often tired and unreliable measures are used to measure things. In addition, there rarely exists a process to transition from feedback to coaching in a systematic, across-management kind of way. Data are not integrated into a way to track actions from coaching.
In response to this, we developed such a system, using reliable psychometric data, and a way to store and track the actions needed from coaching sessions.
Our client was a telecommunications company in North America, providing cellular and internet data in their region. There was some discomfort with the existing 360 feedback and coaching, so Organized Change was hired to develop and deliver a new system.
We customized the numerical portion of the 360 feedback by using our data base of questions in the Organized Change Survey System(OCSS), our proprietary database, deliver and graphing software. The categories included:
• Delegation of authority
• Encouraging performance
• Integrity
• Outcomes
• Communication
• Focus on customer
• Learning & development
• Teamwork
• Consistency of words & actions
• Innovation
• Motivating employees
• Support of vision & mission
Instead of using an agree-disagree scale, widely regarded by psychometricians as problematic, we asked responders to numerically describe the feedback receivers on strength- needs improvement scale.
We also gathered more qualitative data asking for examples of what management can do better, and should continue to do, also using OCSS™
For more information on OCSS™, see here
An example of an interactive graph created by OCSS is below:
We also summarized the numerical responses, highlighting those items that were greater than 3 (some improvement necessary). An example is below:
Teamwork questions
How much this person encourages a teamwork environment
How much this person values diversity of ideas and opinions
How this person approaches conflict and problem solving*
Overall response, non-self: 1.88
Asterisked items need at least some improvement( greater than a three average)
We used the California Personality Inventory (CPI), more robust and reliable measure of personality than the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(MBTI). Categories of personality measured include:
• Dealing with others
• Insight into others
• Creativity
• Self-management
• Work-related measures
• Amicability
• Motivations & thinking style
• Management potential
Individual graphs and charts were presented to each client. In addition, a summary graph, comparing all those reporting to the CEO was also created.
We evaluated the numerical results from the 360 feedback instrument, the answers to the qualitative questions and personality measures to write a series of recommendations for each Vice President , as well as the CEO. An example is below:
Summary and observations of consultant
• Areas for improvement come from superior and yourself
• Managing performance
• Allowing people to get away with things
• Combination of high dominance and low insightfulness (relative to others in the group) may cause clashes with group members.
Microsoft Sharepoint ™ is a collaborative environment that allows the sharing of documents, threaded discussion groups, task lists and calendars.
We created a Sharepoint subsite for each Vice President, and as well at the CEO. This allowed us to deposit 360 feedback reports, personality measures and recommendations from the consultant, in a way that only the client and the consultant could see and review documents and coaching sessions.
After each coaching session, a task list was created so the client could keep track of actions that were due at various times. An example of such is below:
The CEO was a very hard-nosed individual, having played contact sports as a youth. As a result, we knew our feedback had to be clear, direct, and with few holds barred. Rather than reactive, he became thoughtful after his feedback, and was persuaded to develop a Powerpoint presentation outlining the issues in his management style and what me meant to do about them. He this presented this information to his Vice Presidents, and encouraged them to do the same.