How to Implement 360 Degree Feedback

00:00:00

Emre: Well, hello everyone. Welcome to "How to Implement 360-Degree Feedback" with Anna Wildman herself. It's so awesome to have everyone on board. As people are coming in, we want to start with a simple poll while we wait for all participants to join. I think this question captures the very essence of 360-degree feedback — why it's so important and also why it can be a little difficult. The question is: which direction of feedback is the most intimidating or difficult for you? By direction I mean downward, upward, or sideways. Do you feel less comfortable giving feedback to direct reports, to your managers, or to your peers? I think this distinction makes or breaks the magic of 360-degree feedback. On my end, Anna, I feel least comfortable giving feedback to my peers.

Anna: Oh, that's interesting. Thank you.

Emre: With managers or direct reports, I feel like you almost have an obligation to make your opinion known, help them out, let them know how they're doing. But with a peer, every once in a while I feel like — who am I to give this person my opinion? Am I going to make their day just a little weirder, a little more awkward?

Anna: [laughter] I can't imagine you do that. I shall ask you for feedback after the session and see how that goes. Interesting. So lots of people are saying upward, which can be quite a difficult dynamic, and hardly anybody says downward — which is another interesting statistic.

Emre: On paper, giving feedback to your manager or boss is something everyone should do, of course. But we all know it's never that simple, and those are the dynamics we'll be exploring in this webinar today. Let me move things along to what we'll actually be covering. We're currently in the welcome and housekeeping phase. Then Anna will take over and give you all the tips and tricks you need on how to give honest and effective feedback in every direction — how to have those difficult conversations with your peers, your managers, and your direct reports, using the right frameworks and conversation patterns. After the more theoretical and human side, our very own Carlos Santana will be showing you the software side — the technical side, and how you can apply it using the right tools and technology, which in this case is Teamflect. Speaking of which, Carlos, do you want to say anything to our guests?

Carlos: Hey everyone. Super excited that you're all here today and I'm looking forward to showcasing the platform in a few minutes.

Emre: Perfect. Awesome. We have a live Q&A in the webinar's Q&A function, so feel free to ask all of your questions there and we'll try our best to answer them in the chat. All your questions will be recorded and Anna will stick around until the very end for a Q&A session. If you have any technical difficulties, our very own Casey is in the chat and can handle everything. If you run into issues, you can reach her at [email protected]. A couple more things before we start — and these are the exciting bits. Everyone who attends the webinar, keep your eyes out for an email coming to your inbox very soon, because you might be receiving a special deal from Teamflect. And throughout this presentation, we'll also be sending you a form in the chat. If you enter your name, you'll get a chance to win Anna's book. We'll do the raffle right here — a random name picker — and Anna will send you a copy. With all that housekeeping done, I am so excited to pass the floor to Anna. Anna Wildman is the inventor of the CEDAR Feedback Model and founder of Oil in the Engine. She is the person — the voice — when it comes to feedback. How do I know this? Well, I was filming a YouTube video on how feedback models work and she commented and gave me feedback on it because I got her model completely wrong. Anna, the floor is yours.

00:05:57

Anna: Thank you very much indeed. I'm going to share my screen. Hi, everybody. So pleased to be here and I really appreciate this opportunity to talk about this — it's such an important area of dynamic in any organization. We're going to cover three key areas. First: how do I implement a culture at work where feedback can flow in all directions — up, down, and sideways? Next: we'll look at the ability to hold tough feedback conversations. And then: how to avoid common 360 program pitfalls. Let's jump straight in with a quote. All good programs start with a quote. And this is probably my favorite feedback rule: as machines get better at being machines in the world of AI, humans have to get better at being more human. The more we use AI, the more that day-to-day conversation between people is of the utmost value in terms of setting how the company works and what it feels like to actually belong somewhere. And it is important that we get good at this because it is based on relationships.

I just want to introduce myself, because I've been in-house where you are. I started out in the Royal Navy — I did 10 years, my specialism was radar, a very long time ago. Then I joined Cathay Pacific Airways and was responsible for performance management training for Cathay in a global role, which was really interesting in terms of seeing how different cultures tackle this. I then joined KPMG, first in China and then in a global role leading soft skills training. I left that and set up my own company called Oil in the Engine — because that's what these conversations are: absolutely the oil in the engine. I'm an expert advisor on the British Standards Institute, helping to develop the performance management ISO. And as Emre mentioned, I have a book called "Now You're Talking" which goes through 20 conversations that managers need to lead. Here's a view of the clients, past and present, that I've worked with, and here is where I've worked around the world. My apologies for any European country that is wildly out of place on the map — it got a little busy. But it's been fascinating to compare how different cultures tackle this. The skills I've put together are a composite of what works across every culture, not just one or two.

00:09:10

Anna: So, let's jump straight in: how do I implement a culture at work where feedback can flow in all directions? I've got three tips. The first is an obvious one: work through your leaders. If you've got a leader who is likely to act as a champion and put backing behind this, you are already on a winner. I'll show you how to get champions with data in just a moment. That's number one, and it's almost a slam dunk. The next: if you can't do that, work through your team leaders. Team leaders sit next to other teams, and one team can have a really great culture while another does not. If you show team leaders how — and I'll give you some tips on that — most of them will understand that it makes team results better. The third is to work direct. If you can't do either of the top two, issue easy-to-use conversation guides, and I'll show you how you can do that across your company.

I've put up here some of the best resources I've come across — the most powerful and well-researched data. One is McKinsey on the left-hand side: they talked about how revenue grows twice as fast if you look at both people and financials. Strong employee engagement increases profitability by 23% — great Gallup research. And the fact that employees are more engaged if they receive fast feedback. Do take a snapshot of that. We spend a lot of time going down rabbit holes finding the best studies that back up why these conversations matter. Or you could go to your own employee survey — if you've got survey data, you can present that to your leaders. This shows how it affects the bottom line. That's what I'm always working on. It's not about being touchy-feely.

This is important because feedback cannot be suddenly hot-wired. You can't sit down with someone and suddenly say "Trust me, we're going to have a good, open feedback conversation" if the relationship isn't already good. So, encourage team leaders to ask their teams as a whole: "What do we want to set as our team standards for both giving and receiving feedback?" This is interesting because it's both giving and receiving — not just you having to do it.

00:12:20

Anna: Peer feedback is one of the most powerful development tools when it works well. And I'll just touch on a few of the simple things that I've found in watching thousands of conversations. One of the most useful things you can do is to ask everyone in a team how they prefer to receive feedback. As I say, these are just some examples, but the key thing is for someone to sit down and say: "How do you like to receive positive feedback, and how do you prefer to explore constructive feedback together?" Those two questions are the absolute minimum you need to be asking a team member, because you need to work out together how you give feedback in a way that lands. Managers have a responsibility to give feedback — so give it in the way the individual likes to receive it.

And work direct. So: work through leaders, work through team leaders, and you can also work direct. This is based on my experience of watching thousands of real-life conversations in over 40 countries. Give people a step-by-step framework so that they can navigate through, with examples of what to say. For example, I've put a developmental feedback conversation guide for managers here, and there's a mirror image one for team members so they can join in. It shows them how to open it, what to say. There are conversation guides like this that you can simply issue — they create a better culture because they start people understanding how to ask questions and how to follow through confidently. You need to help build their confidence. Here are some examples of the sorts of guides that people absolutely crave. These are all free — fully downloadable. There are all the core ones like goal setting, coaching, and compensation, but I've pulled out the tough ones here: how to give a lower-than-expected performance review, how to handle someone who's stressed or acting out. Once you've got a guide, it really helps build your confidence when you're having to navigate those conversations. No guessing. There's a QR code linking through to my website where you can get these. You can develop them into something branded for your organization — just give people a simple sheet like that and it starts to create the kind of culture you really need to be generating.

00:17:42

Anna: So, how can tough feedback conversations land constructively — down, up, and sideways? I mentioned earlier this is not about touchy-feely. I'm going to briefly run through this conversation guide that I developed from watching those thousands of conversations. I teach these skills for the British Army, but also mostly for organizations such as the ones you're probably in. Here are some of the organizations using the CEDAR Feedback Model to give structure to a feedback conversation. So, what is it? Downward feedback first. If you sit opposite a team member and say, "Can I give you some feedback?" — this is the reaction you're going to get. The first thing they want to know is: does this really matter? Is this an important conversation? That's the context — how big is it? Next, they ask for examples. It's no good saying, "Anna, I want you to be a better team player." I want to know exactly: "What do you mean? Where did I do that? What did I say?" D is diagnosis — "Surely this isn't all my fault?" This is a vital step not in most feedback models: finding out the why behind where they are. Then A for action: what next? Moving forward. So far, you've been looking at what happened in the past and why. Now, let's move forward. And the last one is review — because if you don't follow up, I'm going to assume it wasn't really that important.

Context: explain what you want to talk about and why it matters. Not everything is important — you might just say, "This is just something day-to-day, Anna," or you might say, "This is a significant area of your role." Give a sense of the size of it. Examples: a couple of specifics, but not so many that it feels like drinking from the proverbial fire hose. It might just be one really big one, but group them together so it doesn't feel like Whac-A-Mole.

This is where you pause and stop talking and let them take over. Explore causes: "Anna, what do you think is behind this?" In terms of wider influences — maybe budget, lack of resources, lack of facilities, market influences, any of these sorts of things. And then talk about their own capabilities. What did I do? Where do I need more skills, or where am I doing a really good job and how am I doing that? Ask for their insights first. It takes a little bit of time, but this is where you're teaching them to think for themselves. And you might learn something about what's going wrong.

This is a cartoon drawn for me by Ed McLachlan: "For every 100 people hacking at the branches of a diseased tree, only one will stoop to inspect the roots." Don't treat the symptoms — treat the actual cause. Then action, moving forward: ask what action they want to take. Don't let this come from you too soon, because you'll own it if you've suggested it. That doesn't mean you shouldn't offer suggestions — just not too early in the conversation. And then follow up: if it was important enough to have a conversation, ask, "When should we check back in together?" Don't leave it too long. Give support in the meantime and do follow up.

00:22:49

Anna: Those are the five steps. Context first, then examples, then why — diagnosis — then where do you want to go with this, and then when should we follow up? It really seems to work. I've pulled out the context step because this is the one that matters most. Whatever you say to open, that sets the trajectory the rest of the conversation will follow. Each of the conversation guides has a specific opening statement, but here is one that always works: "This task, whatever it is, definitely has its challenges. What are the biggest obstacles from your point of view?" If you want to open a tough feedback conversation, this works in all directions — up, down, sideways. It positions the conversation as you and me against the mountain — you and me against the challenges of the task, not you versus me. Just try that one sentence next time you want to give someone developmental feedback and see if it works. You'll find it transforms the opening.

I want to show you how this looks in real life. I've got a quick video clip.

[Video clip]

Manager: Thanks for coming in. I just wanted to talk about the marketing campaign that you're working on. I know it's a tight deadline and there are a lot of different departments involved, so keeping it on track for delivery by the end of next month is a big challenge. As you know, it's a really important launch for us, so I'd be glad to help in any way that I can. Which particular areas are the toughest to keep on track?

Team member: Well, one of the problems was that a lot of the materials had to go back. Then they got caught in customs, which held us up another couple of days.

Manager: Customs delays can...

[End of clip]

Anna: That's just a short clip. The full video with the full CEDAR steps is on my website. But it just shows you how that opening can start very constructively if you take that positioning.

So, that's how to give feedback downwards using the CEDAR Feedback Model. But keep upward and sideways feedback much simpler — I've put those two together. Here's upward feedback day-to-day. This depends on how good your relationship is with your boss or leader. But if you can frame it in terms of the results you're looking for and what you need from the conversation, that will help it feel less personal. Start with what they do well — leaders hardly ever get any positive feedback. Say, "When you do this, Anna, it really helps to achieve that." They may say, "Okay, give me the bad news," but it really does help them understand what is helping and repeat that for you. Then, when you frame the suggestion, don't overegg it. Keep it simple. "One of the challenges for me in my work is A. What would help, and save time, reduce risk, or whatever it is, is to have as much B as possible." The B is whatever you need from them — clarity, conversations together about how this is working, examining where the risks are. That's how to frame it. This is more than 30 years of real-life experience in finding exact words that work.

00:27:12

Anna: And in 360s — sticking with the upward for a minute before we go to peer-to-peer — if you can get leaders to ask for upward feedback day-to-day, it just becomes routine. Encourage leaders to communicate if they've taken any action on any feedback they've received. And if someone in a 360 writes a really difficult comment — cruel, mean, challenging — even that is information about where to strengthen communication.

Peer feedback: again, start with where they add value. Focus on the task, not the person. Don't talk about the behaviors — talk about the task. "With this task, that really helps." Then explain what would help further, and again just frame it as the challenges with the task. "Thinking about what would help, doing more Z could help save time, reduce risk, bring better results. Would this be possible?" Try that one day and let me know.

Emre: The most flattering thing about this whole interaction is you addressing me as a piranha.

Anna: [laughter] Of course. I should really be putting you in the leader role. You've reminded me. Asking for peer feedback: when you're going to ask a peer for feedback, you want them to be comfortable giving it to you. Start with where you're adding value — this is good for you to know too, because it'll help you understand what to keep doing. Ask a peer: "What would you pick out from my work that's helping you most?" They'll be happy to give you that, and they'll be even happier then to give you a suggestion. "If you have a suggestion to help me, what could I do more of or differently to build results further?" If you've asked for the positive first, they'll be happy to give you a suggestion. I've done this in pretty much every country I've worked in. Start with: "Where am I helping? Where can I be sure I'm adding value to what you do?" Then they will follow up with a suggestion.

As I say, your best tool is simple conversation guides — give them to the team as well as to the leader. I've got mirror images for the team ones. They're free. No budget required. I'm happy for you to rebrand them, and I can work with you to frame them in your own language.

00:30:28

Anna: The last area is: how do I avoid common 360 feedback program pitfalls? First: be clear about your purpose before you start. Is this for appraisal or for development? If it's for development, people are more likely to give more candid feedback. Appraisal is always a little more complicated because it might be tied to bonuses. Think through the purpose and communicate it clearly.

Design the questions carefully. Help people focus — not too many. When I was at Cathay Pacific, we had 77 questions. That takes a lot of time. The more you can condense them, the more it will help people focus.

Protect anonymity — unless your feedback culture is so open that everybody is happy to share. Anonymity is important. Ideally, pick key stakeholders, not just the people likely to give positive feedback. This requires trust, so that people aren't going to assume things. And that hot-wiring I talked about earlier applies here.

This one is the most important: make the follow-up conversation count. 360s are fantastic at increasing self-awareness — that's their underlying foundational driver. But if you don't follow up, it won't matter. Help people focus on what matters most and what they need to do first. Not everything is a priority. If there are more than five areas to focus on, tackle one or two at a time.

And run it regularly, but not too often — and the Teamflect team will be super helpful in doing that. Keep in mind the admin load. I'm going to stop there. Thank you very much, Emre. Here are my details — the QR codes link to the resources section where all the conversation guides are. Follow me on LinkedIn because every time I issue a new conversation guide, it goes out in a newsletter about once a month. I'll stop sharing now and hand back to you.

00:33:21

Emre: Yes, perfect. Anna, thank you so very much. Every time we have one of these conversations, one thing that really hits me is that sentence: "us against the mountain." It's not you going up against something and me telling you what to do — it's us against the mountain. That approach really changed the way I looked at it from our very first conversation. I've taken some of the questions that were asked in the chat and added them to the Q&A section — stick around because Anna will answer all of your questions. Before we switch to the live Teamflect demo, Casey will be sending a form in the chat right about now. If you type your name into it, towards the end of the webinar we'll do a random name picker and send you a signed copy of Anna's book. Now that we know what to say, how to say it, and how to approach those conversations, let's take a look at a platform where you can have those conversations, build a structure around them, no matter where your team is distributed. To do that, I'm passing the mic to our very own Carlos Santana. Carlos, the floor is yours — let's take a look at how 360 feedback works inside Microsoft Teams with Teamflect.

00:35:09

Carlos: Thank you, Emre. Hello, everyone. Excited to walk you through the platform. Let me just share my screen and we can kick things off. Can you see my screen?

Emre: Yes, we can.

Carlos: Perfect. So, this is essentially what employees will see when they access the platform via Microsoft Teams. On the left-hand side, you can see all of the different functionality that comes with Teamflect. For today's demonstration, we're going to be focusing on the feedback module. But before we get into that, I want to address the accessibility of Teamflect — how easy it is to use and access via Microsoft Teams. One of the main friction points we hear from clients is the annoyance that comes with going into a separate system and having to remember a password or username. What we do at Teamflect is remove that friction through our integration with Microsoft Teams. Folks will receive notifications around the actions they need to take within the platform. Specifically for this demonstration, we can see any 360s we have — and these would be the notifications that folks receive directly in Microsoft Teams. You'll also be able to view this in Outlook via email, and there's also an application add-on you can install in Outlook so folks can access it there as well.

00:36:50

Carlos: Now let's talk a little bit about the feedback module. Here in the feedback module, folks can see all of the feedback they have received, as well as pending feedback yet to be delivered — feedback given by the individual and ones they still have to deliver. They can also find their 360-degree feedback templates here. If we click into one, we can see our 360-degree feedback template description. We have the self-assessment that has been completed, so I can see all of my responses. I can also see that feedback requests have been sent on my behalf to anonymous providers, and that those have been provided. From a results perspective, if you choose to have results visible to employees, they can see where they've scored across different questions. We also have the capability to see an AI analysis which gives a summary of the feedback received across the different templates, and a breakdown of responses based on each question included in those templates.

00:38:19

Carlos: Now for folks who want to build out a 360-degree template that may be completely anonymous — anonymous providers and anonymous results — you can do that as well. I'll walk through creating that in the admin center. We're in the admin center. We go to Modules, then Feedback, then 360-Degree Templates, and we'll edit one. Of course, you can name your templates whatever you'd like, include a description, and decide whether or not you'd like an AI summary as part of that template. Next, we go to the 360-degree feedback settings. For folks who want to include a self-assessment, you can easily toggle that on or off. We have a template library you can leverage with different questions depending on the situation and the feedback you'd like to gather. You can go into any of these templates and edit them, or create your own. You can also leverage AI to help you generate questions. For example, if we wanted to create a template for delivering feedback to a direct report, I can just hit "generate questions" and it will create a list of questions with different response types for us to consider and decide if we want to use any — which would save you a bunch of time.

You can set different levels for templates — for example, peers having a specific template assigned. You can set maximum amounts of feedback providers. And this is where you would control visibility for the recipient. For folks who want completely anonymous feedback, you would choose that option here, and you can even make it anonymous to managers and admins as well. There's also a section for managers and supervisors, and for folks who may want to collect feedback externally, you can set that up as part of the 360 as well.

From here, you decide how you want to run this template — a one-time feedback cycle, or for folks who want periodical instances throughout the year, maybe quarterly or twice a year, you can decide how often those cycles should go out. We have automations for new hires as well as anniversary automations. Once you decide the best approach, you can choose who the feedback recipients will be — everyone across the company, individual users or groups from Microsoft Teams, or get granular based on attributes like manager vs. non-manager roles, departments, locations, and additional filters. Then you set due dates, and once everything looks good, you hit start and your feedback cycle automation is running.

00:42:42

Carlos: From a reporting perspective, we have reports directly in the admin center. Here you can see feedback by date, the top receivers and senders of feedback across the organization, with filters on the right-hand side to get more granular by team, department, or location. You can see average scores on feedback questions and get information around feedback details with respect to specific templates and questions. All of this can be exported, so if you need to move this information elsewhere, you can do that easily as well. That pretty much covers the platform. If you have any questions about how things can work, please send them in the Q&A chat — happy to answer those as they come in.

00:43:48

Emre: Thank you so much, Carlos. Thank you for going over the 360-degree feedback module within Teamflect. The whole idea is this: feedback is a very difficult process to implement if it's out of your way or if you have to chase people down to do it. What we're trying to do with Teamflect's feedback module — especially with the 360-degree feedback module — is make sure feedback from all directions is very easy to deliver, because it's right there inside Microsoft Teams. People who need to give you feedback receive a notification inside Teams chat or through Outlook. Everything is right there when you need it.

Before we do the Q&A, I'd like to spin the wheel, Anna, to see who wins a copy of the book.

[Wheel spin]

Emre: All right — Nathan Doran, you just won a copy of "Now You're Talking." Hopefully a signed copy, Anna?

Anna: Indeed. Yes. Nathan, great — I'll get that on its way to you. Well done.

Emre: Nathan, feel free to contact Anna, but we also have your information so we'll be in touch. Now, let's take a look at your questions. We received a very interesting range of questions — some about reacting to feedback, some about habits surrounding feedback, and some about delivering it. The first one is about reacting to it: what do you do when you've been expecting to receive feedback on something for about a month, and the feedback was negative? What's the best way to communicate it, Anna?

00:46:55

Anna: My suggestion is that I have a mirror-image conversation guide for team members. The conversation guides for team members follow the CEDAR steps, but they help you guide the conversation yourself — asking for what's going well, where the challenges are, and going through each of the CEDAR steps. That helps you, even if your manager doesn't use the CEDAR model or is absolutely terrible at feedback conversations — it helps you guide the conversation by stealth, to say, "Here's what I need out of this so that I can take it forward." It's not easy, and it can be really difficult. My suggestion is always to frame it in terms of the results you bring. Help your manager see that where they pick out what you're doing well, it helps you understand where your contribution is and keep doing that. I'm sorry if that's the experience you're getting. What a shame.

Emre: Indeed. And the next question is: what is one habit you've seen in leaders who successfully create a truly continuous feedback culture?

Anna: This is such a good question. Leaders being resistant to feedback is one of the biggest barriers. If they're resistant, it's really hard. I said work through teams and work direct — you can absolutely do that — but if you don't get leadership buy-in, it just takes more effort. The one thing I see in leaders who are happy to get on board with this is actually confidence in leading the conversations themselves. They feel that they understand how to do it. The more you give them the skills, the more you build their confidence, the more they're able to say, "Yeah, this is good — I'll hold a feedback conversation, and have you got anything for me?" Just because they feel more able to engage. One of the conversation guides I have is about how to pass on second-hand feedback from a leader — and that's a leader showing they don't have the confidence to hold the conversation themselves. At the top of that guide, it says: "Train them." If you have to pass it on, you have to do it, but if you can train the leaders to have that confidence using the guides, all the better. I actually produced a small book for leaders while I was at KPMG — each little page has some tips on it. The more you keep it really simple, the more people are likely to use it. In fact, one of the offices had to move and one of their leaders said to me: "I threw out everything. I took it as an opportunity to throw out everything. But I kept your book." People have got something simple there, they're going to reach for it. Try developing that for yourselves — I'm absolutely happy to help you with it.

Emre: Amazing. And while you were answering, someone in the chat asked Carlos about limiting certain review templates and their visibility. One thing that is pretty neat about Teamflect — and Carlos can attest to this — he just saw something and said, "Hey, we might not have that, but that is a pretty neat feature." I'm pretty sure our dev team will be on it within the month, because that is a great idea indeed. Now the next question is one I'm very curious about, because I think it's the toughest of all: how do you handle a performance review where you know your team did not hit the numbers for the quarter — and now you have to discuss it with your manager?

Anna: I should ask you what you normally find in the answers to this.

Emre: [laughter]

Anna: I think if you get to the end of the year and you're talking about the interim, that's one situation — and I've got a conversation guide for that. If you're talking about the end of the year, the leader has to take some responsibility. No surprises, right? No surprises at the end of the year. So, get brave and have the conversation earlier. If it's too late and it's year end, first up: don't go through it all again. You're wasting your breath — it won't change anything. But do summarize the key reasons simply, and then work out how to avoid the surprises in the future. Two questions: "How do we get you to where you want to be?" and "Next time, how do we avoid any surprises?"

Emre: I think no surprises is a good approach. At the end of the day, when that performance review conversation comes, it's not like both sides are finding out about this at that very moment. If we haven't hit those numbers, we've been living with it. It's been part of our day-to-day, maybe part of why we've been stressed throughout that time, or part of the reason why we're working extra hard to figure things out. I don't think having the entire conversation again on the spot is helpful to anyone. That's a lot of stress and anxiety on all participants.

Anna: So, the great thing then is to step back and do it at the interim reviews — however often you have them. Companies are moving to monthly. But even if you have them half-yearly, encourage your team member to think for themselves and say, "Where do you think we are? We've got to keep on track for year end. Where do you want to be and how do we get you there?" Start with the positive first. Start with what they're succeeding at because that gives them a sense of real progress. Not softly-softly, not being cuddly — this is about understanding the contribution to the bottom line they're making. Lead on that, and then get them to lead on where their development areas are, because that will show you whether they're really understanding where those are. You'll hear a lot. If they don't say something, you can then raise it. Ask them first. Let them lead it.

Emre: Also, I think maybe I've been too sunshine-and-rainbow-y about this. The reality is a lot less comfortable. But the real keyword in that question is "your team and your manager" — so that means it's not a single person. If a team didn't hit the numbers, well, the manager didn't hit those numbers too. We didn't hit those numbers together. So the conversation is: how do we as a unit hit those numbers together? While that makes a lot of sense on paper, the reality is it might not be that simple or understanding. But I think that's the way to go about it.

Anna: Cool.

00:56:03

Emre: Moving on — we have our last two questions. How do you approach requesting feedback from people who avoid providing it at all costs due to conflict avoidance?

Anna: Go back to the two-pronged question. Ask for feedback by saying, "What's going well? Where am I adding value? And what suggestion would you have for what I could do differently or more of?" That's quite carefully worded from years of watching these conversations. People often find that easier to respond to, and you'll still hear what you need to hear.

Emre: And they are avoiding it at all costs because they're trying to avoid conflict.

Anna: Start with the positive. Then swing in.

Emre: You start with the stuff they actually want to say.

Anna: Well, if they're asking you for feedback, do the same. Give them where they're adding value. "I just want to let you know that this makes a difference." And then my suggestion for something to do differently — you can get tougher. Anyone on the call who has children will know: don't say "no" unless you really mean it. You can get tougher — just don't be too tough too soon. Make a suggestion and they'll hear it. You're allowing them the opportunity to take that forward. If you need to be clearer, one of the conversation guides covers what happens if nothing changes — the same conversation twice. Then you need to really nail the data as to what's not working and why. It goes in a little more clearly the second time around. But give people ownership first. Your job is not to make them change — your job is to give them the information so they have the insights to choose action for themselves. You're creating insight about their performance, not driving change. I might choose to do nothing — but that's me taking responsibility for my action. If that doesn't work, then step in. Allow people first. You've got good people in your companies, hopefully. Allow them to take it forward first.

00:59:33

Emre: Wonderful. I'm looking at the chat for more questions. Jose in the chat has a question about the mechanics of 360 feedback. The question is: we have established a regular anonymous 360-degree feedback culture, which is wonderful, but some responses remain very limited — such as "doing well" or "nothing this quarter." Since the process is anonymous, we're unable to identify who may need coaching or how to provide more meaningful and constructive feedback. How can leaders address this? This really points to the very tight balance between keeping things anonymous versus making sure people get the help they need. How do we balance this?

Anna: My recommendation, having run this in-house many times, is to do a bit of communication before the 360 goes out. Encourage your leaders to say: "Here's why we're running it and here's what really helps." And that is to give specific examples of where people are working really hard and making real contributions, and to be helpful about what would be useful for them to concentrate on going forward. So that messaging is out there. And you're doing something called a sheep dip — you're not picking out one or two people. You're putting every sheep through the dip. You're saying to everybody: "These are our expectations and this is how we work as a company doing our 360s." Get it from the top if you can. Keep the messaging simple. Do you know what I mean by a sheep dip?

Emre: Not a clue — I don't think that's a reference I've ever heard before.

Anna: I grew up on a farm. If you had a lot of sheep, you didn't know which ones were infected with lice or whatever, and which ones weren't. So, you would fill a trough full of disinfectant and make the entire flock go through it. So, when you're doing messaging to everybody — if you want to raise a standard of behavior, you put out a message saying, "Hey everyone, just to remind you of our standards." Every sheep gets the message. You're not picking any one sheep out and pointing the finger at them. That's where it's from.

Emre: Wonderful. You heard it here first, folks. Come for the 360 feedback, stay for the sheep dip. Now, the last couple of questions I want to address. The first comes from Elizabeth: "How do you handle situations where the person receiving feedback responds defensively or negatively?"

01:03:14

Anna: It's one of the guides, Elizabeth. What a great point. The wording on the guides as to how to open it has been very carefully thought through from real-life experience. This one is going to open something like — let's say it's me and I'm your team member. Don't try and push through with the feedback. Just say: "I'm sensing that feedback is hard to handle. Can you talk me through what's creating your reaction? Just tell me what's hard to hear in this kind of conversation." Talk about the reaction. Leave the feedback for the moment. Just get them talking — "Well, I find it really difficult because..." — and then you've got the conversation going. You'll know how to respond.

01:04:21

Emre: Wonderful. And the last question we'll be covering today comes from Hannah: "Thoughts on how to navigate presenting feedback to employees based on personalities, work styles, and communication preferences?" Anna, do you have time for an entirely separate webinar?

Anna: [laughter] Great question. You try giving feedback in Japan — where I've worked many times — compared to, let's go the other end of the scale, Mexico. It's very different. But personalities as well as cultures drive it. I would say: sit down and have that conversation. "How do you like to receive feedback? How do you like to get positive feedback? How do you like to explore the developmental side? Let's set that up together because we want to make sure these conversations are super useful." In South America, they love a lot of positive. In Germany: "Tell it to me straight — I just want to know what's not going well." Find out and ask them, because every personality and every culture is different.

Emre: Definitely, definitely. And once again, we will be sending all participants the presentations, all the decks, and the conversation guides provided by Anna — you'll find everything we've covered today in there. One thing before we wrap up is I want to address the question asked by Jose about the anonymous feedback "sheep dip" question. Anonymous feedback and 360-degree feedback don't have to be mutually exclusive — they can be separate things. The anonymous input you gather from your employees has value and can exist in its own space. But there need to be some feedback processes where you can get the transparency and honesty that comes with open responses. Having the anonymous process on a different track will also free people up — they can say the things they want to say anonymously there, and then this non-anonymous part is for them as this person's peer or direct report to give named feedback. Making them two separate things might be more productive.

01:07:32

Emre: Well, Anna, this has been a roller coaster indeed. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. I want to thank everyone for coming along and staying with us through this entire webinar — it's been wonderful. Everyone who stayed till the end: keep an eye on your inbox because not only will you be receiving the slides, all the content, all the videos, and all the conversation guides, but also a very special offer from Teamflect that is specific to this webinar. In Anna Wildman fashion, I've added QR codes to our final slide — if you want to connect with Anna on LinkedIn, scan the QR code on the right. If you have more questions about Teamflect or want to learn more, you can reach Carlos by scanning the QR code on the left. With that said, thank you all so much for joining us on this webinar — it's been wonderful. You've all been wonderful. Thank you so much for the questions. Anna, always a pleasure — always great to have these conversations with you. Thank you all so very much.

Anna: Thank you. Really enjoyed it. Thanks so much, Emre.

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