360 Feedback Report Best Practices- Part 4 of 6

In the third installment of this series, we talked about how the change model should guide participants through the process of discovering developmental options so they ‘own’ their action plan, making it more about their self-discovery, rather than a prescription given by someone else.

The fourth design principle that is essential for a report that transforms feedback into behavior change is that it should be:

4) One at Time, Don’t Multi-task Development

  The research is very clear that multitasking is not an effective way to get work done. In today's business world, people have to multitask, but when it comes to personal development, multitasking is a choice - people can choose how many items they want to try and develop at one time. 

When people focus on one task until they succeed, and then move on to the next task, they are not only more likely to succeed in improving the chosen skill, but they teach themselves the development process and enhance their ability to improve other skills.

Many traditional 360° experiences result in long lists of skills to improve. The lists can be overwhelming, demoralizing, difficult to sustain change efforts, and participant jump from one item to the next on the list. 

A short list is a motivating target because participants know they can work on it until they succeed. Selecting one skill to improve also reduces the amount of data a participant has to understand before they can move forward, allowing more time to focus on the process of change instead of data interpretation.

Nothing creates success like success and when a participant succeeds in improving the one skill they are working on, it motivates them to work on the next skill to improve.

To read Part 1, click here.

To read Part 2, click here.

To read Part 3, click here.