Social Self-Awareness Validation – A Better Alternative to Traditional 360 Surveys?

By Posted in - 360 Feedback on May 14th, 2013 0 Comments

Traditional 360 Surveys

The traditional 360 survey consists of a series of behavioral statements associated with job relevant competencies. Ratings are provided for each behavior as a measure of the performance of an individual on the behaviors and the underlying competencies. The individual being rated completes a behavioral survey on themselves while others are also completing surveys at the same time. Different perspectives are included such as manager, peers, direct reports, etc. The ratings are aggregated across raters within a give perspective to generate perspective measure.

The underlying assumption behind developmental 360 surveys is that a review and comparison of ratings from others will heighten an individual’s self-awareness and increase their perceived need for change.

Typically, you find inflated self-ratings and low self-other agreement with this traditional approach. This is a problem since research has shown that high self-other agreement is associated with a number of positive outcomes. With low self-other agreement, the individual is likely to discount the ratings of others or become defensive and demotivated by the lower rating values.

Another problem with this traditional approach is rater fatigue. When an individual is being asked to participate in a number of 360 surveys for different people, it is easy to become tired of the rating process and not be as thoughtful as one would hope in their evaluations.

Social Self-Awareness Validation

OMNIview has developed a unique approach to multi-rater surveys that was designed to maximize self-awareness and show higher congruence in self-other’s ratings compared to traditional approaches. In this process, the individual rates their performance in comparison to structured performance standards for each behavior within a competency. The self-ratings are then shared with the other raters in their social network for validation. The raters see the self-ratings as well as the performance standards for each behavior. They then provide their perceptions of agreement or disagreement at the competency level and provide any notes they wish to share.

The combination of structured performance standards with a transparent sharing of the ratings to others is felt to drive higher levels of introspection and self- awareness. We recently put this to a test in a research study with one of our client organizations. The results were amazing. There was a highly significant relationship between self-ratings and the ratings by others and no significant differences in their means. In fact, the self-ratings were slightly lower than the ratings of others. It appears the Social Self-Awareness Validation process corrected the past problems with inflated self-ratings and low self-other agreement. Of course, there is always a caution to not overly extrapolate from a single study but these are pretty amazing results.

Benefits of OMNI’s Multi-Rater Surveys

The benefits of this approach are most likely to be seen in performance feedback sessions and subsequent developmental planning. These sessions will not have the difficult task of overcoming potential defensiveness associated with presenting data showing other’s perceptions being much lower than the individual’s self-perceptions. The higher agreement between self and others should also make it easier for the individual to accept identified development needs as being accurately measured which should increase their willingness to act on the data.

Finally, the more thoughtful introspection driven by the Social Self-Awareness Validation process should help predispose the individual for receiving feedback since they have already thought carefully about their true strengths and development needs.

There are likely to be other benefits to higher self-other agreement including a higher willingness to participate in future 360 surveys. The process should be seen as less threatening by the target individuals. The higher efficiency of this process for gathering “other’s” ratings should also increase the overall willingness of all participants to use 360 surveys for tracking performance improvements and guiding developmental planning efforts.

Patrick Hauenstein, Ph.D.

About Patrick Hauenstein, Ph.D.

Patrick Hauenstein is the President and Chief Science Officer for OMNIview. During his free time Pat likes to cook. He is particularly fond of traditional southern cuisine. Pat is also an animal lover ...
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