Frustrated with your company’s existing performance review process? You’re not alone. According to Gartner, 59% of employees believe that traditional performance reviews have “little to no impact” on their performance. Traditional performance reviews only capture feedback top-down, meaning you’re only getting feedback from your manager. That’s valuable information, but there will still be gaps in areas you can work on to grow your career.
Quarterly and annual reviews tend to focus on your hard skills and competencies. They don’t give you much information about your professional and soft skills, or the micro-behaviors that might help you grow professionally and get that next promotion.
Why Are 360-Degree Reviews So Important?
The success behind 360-degree feedback comes from the fact that you are gathering feedback from everyone you work with, not just your manager. Even as a manager you’ll have the opportunity to get feedback from your own manager, peers, and team members. Done well, 360-degree feedback gives you the kind of feedback that can identify blind spots. Here are some benefits that a 360-degree review practice can provide you and your team:
- Identifies your soft skill strengths and where you have room for growth
- Encourages coworkers to practice honest communication
- Gets your team buy-in to help you achieve their professional goals
- Provides a roadmap that can make a team more collaborative and effective
- Creates a “growth mindset” culture that encourages change and creativity
- Allows you to be more aware of your effect on others and develop confidence
- Let's you gather feedback from the people who work with you most closely
- Creates a sense of accountability that is shared by the team as a whole
What Are Some Important 360-Degree Review Questions To Ask Your Peers When Asking for Feedback?
1. Am I a good verbal communicator?
You can’t function effectively in a business atmosphere without good verbal communication. However, many people don’t realize that verbal communication is more than just the words you say, but also the tone that you take. One piece of advice is to restate statements when you want to clarify an idea or question. This not only helps you with clarity, but also demonstrates to others you are respecting their time and listening actively to what they have to say. By asking for feedback, you’ll know how and what to change the next time you present to your manager and team.
2. How is my nonverbal communication?
Nonverbal communication and verbal communication work in tandem. Fail at one and you will also fail at the other. You may be unconsciously delivering a negative message to your peers with your facial expressions, body language, and hand motions. Understanding what might be putting your peers off can help you become conscious of what you need to change and also help you get better at your interpersonal communication skill.
3. Do my listening skills need work?
Listening to someone is easy, but active listening can be hard. Active listening revolves around taking in everything the other person is saying before forming your responses. An example would be to ask clarifying questions versus jumping right into responses. Active listening requires concentration and commitment to make everyone around you feel genuinely heard and understood.
If your peers don’t think you listen to them, they will feel that you’re not valuing their opinions. In the end, that can cause them to shut you out of important conversations or limit their communication with you altogether. Your goal is to develop a listening style that makes the speaker feel encouraged and comfortable talking with you.
4. Do I demonstrate empathy?
A lot of people believe that empathy can’t be taught, but it can. Empathy is also the key to successful personal and professional relationships. In a professional setting, a lack of empathy can leave a team feeling like it’s every person for themselves.
One of the ways to develop empathy is to understand how others feel about you and your reactions to them. Simply learning how you make other people feel can often open a window into the emotional state of others, and you can continue to refine your own habits and behaviors to improve that.
5. Am I resilient in the face of setbacks?
Do your co-workers see you as someone who is a problem-solver? Or, are you seen as someone that gives up easily? The most valuable team members don’t throw up their hands when there’s a setback and give up. They take what they can learn from the situation and use it to improve their next attempt. Some of the most innovative creations started out as spectacular failures.
How Can Matter Ensure That 360-Degree Review Questions And Feedback Benefit You?
These are just some of the valuable questions that you can ask with Matter. Ultimately, you get to take control of what you believe matters the most to your professional development.
The challenge with trying to develop your professional and soft skills is because self-awareness is incredibly difficult. Matter eliminates that problem. Matter’s easy-to-use platform allows you to receive helpful, engaging feedback that can eliminate your blind spots and help you to identify areas where you have the most opportunity for growth.
Matter believes that effective peer-to-peer feedback should be done regularly, not just once or a few times a year. Plus, Matter allows you to set goals that are most relevant to your role and personal aspirations. Your technical skills may get you through the door, but your soft skills will open up a world of opportunities like leadership roles and promotions.
