Effective conversations and growth

A practical guide for leaders

Motivating, developing and empathising with our employees have become the keywords of today’s leaders who want to form highly productive groups that are committed to the organisation.

One of the most effective tools we can use to achieve this is to have feedback processes for employees.

Exercisingthese functions involves extensive knowledge of the individuals that make up the team; that is, understanding their relationships with leaders, peers, employees, customers and anyone else in direct contact with them or with the work they do.

This is precisely why we have created the 360° Feedback Assessments, tools that allow for all opinions to be heard, in both quantity and quality, in order to get a better and more realistic and deeper idea of the big picture of the work people do at the organisation.

The results of these assessments are high quality conversations that convey the dynamics of relationships between team members and the way to implement changes to improve what isn’t working, and to recognise and acknowledge what is.

Below we provide you with some of the questions that may come up after completing our PDA 360° Feedback Assessment:

1. Do you know what the key competencies for your position are? This first part helps you establish the real competencies that you need to perform your job to the best of your abilities, keeping in mind the array of different opinions.
2. What do you think has led to discrepancies? If there are many differences between the different viewpoints, you can ask yourself this follow-up question.
3. What are the reasons for the lowest self-assessment scores? This creates an opportunity for insight to judge whether these scores are due to a certain situation or a competency that needs to be developed.
4. Are you surprised by the assessments you received or are they fitting in relation to your own perception? Reading how others have assessed you can be a challenge, which is the reason why a leader’s support is important in this regard, to ensure that conversations are constructive.
5. Do the scores differ greatly between your self-assessment and the assessments you received from others? It’s time to understand how everyone else at the organisation interacts with the individual work of each employee, and then relate these results to previous answers.
6. Can you discern the reasons behind the differences in opinion? It’s important to pinpoint the reason for these gaps, for better or worse, as this knowledge can be a guide for how you’re going to do things from here on out in order to improve both your self-assessment and that of others.
7. What do you think are the reasons behind the gaps between your self-assessment and the values determined by the company? If there are many differences between the two, this would be a good time to align the employee’s vision with that of the organisation, and to figure out the reasons behind the differences.
8. What are your strongest competencies according to others and how do they align with the company’s needs? When employees see the strengths that others see in them, this builds self-esteem and very often allows them to discover qualities they didn’t realise they had. In addition, this comparison of them with the needs of the organisation opens up a wide range of possibilities to enable their future growth.
9. What are your weakest competencies according to others and how do they align with the company’s needs? Understanding your opportunity areas allows you to accept where you’re going wrong so you can take action based on what you want to improve. In turn, this can provide a leader with information regarding how to delegate tasks within a team in order to achieve the best results possible.
10. What actions do you want to take to work on these findings? Once you’ve reviewed the results, you must devise specific improvement plans and follow-up as needed so you don’t lose the momentum of this kick-start to your self-awareness.

Making these types of actions common practice will benefit leader-team relations in the long-term, drawing upon an honest intention to empower employees in order to get the very best from each one of them.

Make motivating, developing and empathising your mantra, and create constructive and harmonious workplaces.