How to Get and Assess Feedback from Your Team

jeremiahjosey (37)in #life • 6 years ago

Transparency on performance is the most important need in a democratic workplace. This applies the most to anyone where they supervise, support, or look over other people. Like managers and business line leaders.

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If you are suppressing your people, there is no way they can perform at their best.

Getting feedback will tell how you are doing - essential for long term sustainability.

Semco does this well (Ricardo Semler's company) by using Upward Feedback forms. You can read his book Maverick - The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace

I took what Ricardo explained and turned it into a process that I applied several times with my team. I do it about every 6 months or so.

You need courage to hear the results. Then you must doing something about it. Yet the benefits expand you, and the organisation.

Remember the first rule: There is only one rule and it is that there are no fixed rules! Work with your team and develop the tool with them. It benefits everyone.

Here's what I did:

At the time of the first evaluation, my team was about 35 people. I delivered the form to every person in my team. With each person I made care to explain what it was for: evaluating my performance as their leader. I then left them with an open invitation them to complete the form and give it return it. I made it clear that it was voluntary and would anonymous. When - and if - they complete the form they are to give it to my secretary - not to me.

To my secretary I gave clear instructions not to talk to me about who has said what or who has marked what. She had to compile the results into a score sheet, by counting how many As, Bs, Cs and Ds. I did the analysis afterwards. She throws the original forms away once she has extracted the results.

She also types out the free field "Tell me What you think" section I have. I can't tell who wrote what.

Everyone in my team whom I gave the form I inform that I will never know who wrote what. So they are free to say what they wish.

I then present the anonymous results to my team so they know where I stand with them.

The feedback analysis form is here:

https://tinyurl.com/Semler-Supervisor-Feedback

A result of less than 70% means work needed. Under 50% means why are you even there?!!

I rated 86% on my evaluation.

Note that I pitched this program to the CEO of the 40,000-person-organisation I was consulting. But the company wasn't ready for widespread use of the process. So I keep it to myself and my team, nethertheless it worked well.

This is how I analyse the results:

Not everyone answers every question. The analysis takes this into account.

Give A, B, C & D a simple score. A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, D = 4.
I have 36 multiple-choice questions on my form. 14 of them have 4 answers (A, B, C and D), whilst 22 have only 3 answers (A, B and C). Hence the top score is 122 (4 x 14 + 3 x 22).
For every answer I work out it's average score. For example, with a question with 3 x As, 5 x Bs, 26 x Cs and 5 x Ds, the average score would be: (3 x 1 + 5 x 2 + 26 x 3 + 5 x 4) / (3+5+26+5) = 111/39 = 2.84 (out of a possible maximum of 4)
Add all these aggregated scores together.
Divide them by the theoretical maximum score (in my case 122)
Convert to % (divide the score by the maximum and multiply by 100)

Easy.

Should you weight questions? No, don't do it. Why? It makes it complicated. Keep it simple.

Develop the form with your team. Your team can contribute questions that suit their. It will be most relevant to your organisation.

Good luck!!

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This post was in response to a request from Tiago Andrade e Silva. In 2010 he read my Slideshow presentation on forming teams and wanted to know more.

You can see the presentation that Tiago found here: