Trident LED402 module 3 case +slp and discussion August 2018

Module 3 - Background

360-DEGREE FEEDBACK

Required Material

First, start out by viewing this short introduction to 360-degree feedback:

Kunz, A. (2010). 360-degree feedback. Info-Tech Research Group. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AySMxUlRCVs

Now take a look at this slightly more detailed video from Dr. Maxim Sytch of the University of Michigan. Pay special attention to how he relates 360 degree feedback to the Johari Window as this will help you tie this material in with what you learned in Module 2:

Sytch, M. (2016). 360 degree feedback. Coursera https://www.coursera.org/learn/managing-talent/lecture/RIgEa/02-06-360-degree-feedback

Now read Chapters 1 and 2 of the following book for a more thorough and detailed overview of the 306-degree feedback process. The checklist on page 37 will be useful for the Case Assignment:

Taylor, S., Chappelow, C., & Fleenor, J. (2008). Leveraging the Impact of 360-Degree Feedback.Hoboken, NJ, USA: Pfeiffer. [EBSCO eBook Collection]

Finally, take a look at this highly comprehensive chapter that goes into quite a bit of practical detail about the 360-degree process:

Carelli, A. O. (2010). Chapter 5: The truth about 360° assessments. The Truth About Supervision: Coaching, Teamwork, Interviewing, Appraisals, 360° Assessments, and Recognition. Springfield: Charles C Thomas. [EBSCO eBook Collection]

The Vukotich (2014) article below is also highly recommended but not required.

Optional Reading

Vukotich, G. (2014). 360° Feedback: Ready, Fire, Aim-Issues With Improper Implementation. Performance Improvement, 53(1), 30-35.

Mukherjee, S. (2014). Chapter 10: 360 degree survey in coaching need assessment. Corporate Coaching: The Essential Guide. New Delhi, India: Sage Publications Pvt. Ltd. [EBSCO eBook Collection]

Discussion

360-Degree Survey Vendors

PreviousNext

While searching for free 360-degree surveys, you probably came across quite a few webpages for vendors who will charge a lot of money to use their surveys. Take a look at the webpages or YouTube videos for some vendors, and choose one that sticks out to you the most. This could be a vendor that inspires a lot of confidence, or a vendor that does not seem to be reliable at all based on their promotional materials. Share the link with your classmates and explain what makes this vendor stand out. This first post should be within the first few days of the module.

For the second week of the module, if you have been a part of a 360-degree process before, discuss your experiences with your classmates. What went well and what went wrong in this process? What concepts from the background readings were applicable to your own experiences? If you’ve never been though a 360-degree process, try asking a coworker such as your supervisor or someone from the human resource department if they have any experience with 360 processes or if they are considering implementing one in the near future.

Module 3 - Case

360-DEGREE FEEDBACK

Assignment Overview

Continuing on the themes of the Module 1 and 2 Case Assignments, for this module you will also be doing a self-assessment as well as applying the concepts from the module to your own organization. Make sure to thoroughly review the required background materials before starting this assignment, as you need to apply concepts from readings such as Carelli (2010) and Fleenor, et al. (2008) as part of this assignment. Fleenor, et al.’s checklist on page 37 and the Carelli’s checklist on page 175 are especially important for this assignment.

Case Assignment

This assignment has five sections. For each section, the suggested length is one half to one full page, for a total length of four to five pages not including the title page and references. You should also make sure to cite Carelli (2010) and Fleenor, et al. (2008) multiple times throughout the paper as well as any additional references that you find:

1. Most 360-degree surveys are not free and in fact are very expensive if you want to get a license to use them at your organization. However, there are a few free sample 360-degree surveys out there. Do a search on Google or other search engines using terms such as “free 360-degree feedback survey.” Find two or three free surveys and choose one of them that you think would be most applicable to your organization. Explain the reasoning for your choice, and try to use criteria from the readings such as the checklists from Carelli (2010, p. 175) and Fleenor, et al. (2008, p. 37).
2. Now take the survey that you chose in your answer to Question 2 above. Fill out the survey as a self-evaluation – that is, use the survey to evaluate your own leadership skills and other skills. Report the results of your survey. Do you think the survey was useful? What areas for improvement in your leadership skills did you find from using the survey?
3. As a next step, fill out the survey again but this time evaluate your current supervisor or a previous supervisor that you worked with. Report your results. Were the results fair to your supervisor? What are the main areas for improvement for your supervisor based on your results?
4. Now that you have taken the survey twice, what areas for improvement would you make for it before using it again? Would you change the wording of the questions? Any questions that you would add? Use the concepts from Carelli (2010) and Fleenor, et al. (2008) as well as your own experiences filling out the survey to assess the usefulness of the survey that you took.
5. Finally, take a look at pages 153-155 of Carelli (2010) where she discusses pitfalls and potential biases of a 360-degree survey. Which pitfalls do you think would apply to your organization and the leaders you work with? How might you overcome these pitfalls if you were to lead a 360-degree survey process in your organization?

Assignment Expectations

• Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps listed in the instructions
• Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don't go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials
• List supporting references and cite sources in proper format
• Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization, grammar, and spelling).
• Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations.

Module 3 - SLP

360-DEGREE FEEDBACK

For this assignment you will be applying the concepts from the background readings to some specific scenarios that you might face if you were a leadership development coach. Make sure to thoroughly review Carelli (2010) and Fleenor, et al. (2008) before starting on this assignment.

For each of the scenarios below, use at least one reference from the required readings to answer the specific question. Use your knowledge of the background readings to diagnose each scenario in terms of what went wrong and what could have been done differently. Your paper should be 2-3 pages in length:

1. An organization decides that they don’t want to spend the large amount of money to use a 360-degree survey from an established vendor and instead decides to develop their own survey. An employee in the human resource department is asked to create a list of 50 questions about different areas of leadership performance. Two of the senior managers look at the questions briefly and then send out the survey as part of a 360-degree process. Once the results come in, there is no rhyme or reason to the results. For example, one top performing leader in the organization gets perfect performance scores from some employees and very negative scores from other employees. Management is not sure if the results from the survey can be trusted or not.
2. A unit in one organization is having a lot of performance issues and senior management is not sure of the reasons for this. They don’t want to fire any employees but they do think some of the supervisors need to improve their leadership skills. The survey is sent to five employees, which includes two supervisors and three direct reports. They are told that the survey will be anonymous but the results of each survey will be shared with all five employees – only the names will be removed from each survey but they will all be able to see the evaluation scores on each question. When senior management sees the survey results, they find that all five employees received almost perfect scores and no useful information from the surveys can be found.
3. A software company is concerned that they are losing market share to their competitors and that their software is not as high in quality as it used to be. In an effort to improve their competitiveness, they decide to use a 360-degree survey process to identify areas for improvement in leadership skills among their top supervisors in their software design department. After searching through a few different 360-degree instruments offered by different vendors, they find a survey that focuses on communication and teamwork skills. The process seems to go very well as supervisors who score low on communication or teamwork agree to go through training to improve these skills. One year later the 360-degree process is repeated and most supervisors show greatly improved communication and teamwork skills. However, the quality of the company’s software does not seem to have improved at all in spite of the improvements in communication and teamwork.

SLP Assignment Expectations

• Follow the assignment instructions closely and follow all steps listed in the instructions
• Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don't go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials
• List supporting references and cite sources in proper format
• Use appropriate writing style in essay form (organization, grammar, and spelling).
• Include both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations.