Case study: Root Causes Behind Poor Performance
Listening to the wrong feedback was a retrograde development step and lowered business performance
Fixing a broken 360o feedback and development process boosted performance, morale and motivation for our client.
Key outcomes: Management Informatics identified the right feedback to use to improve performance for our client. This was contrary to existing practice where the wrong feedback was actually limiting performance and development planning, in some cases actually encouraging poor performance.
Background
For our client performance improvement amongst its account management teams was the desired development outcome. Despite extensive 360o feedback with subsequent development steps, our client was not seeing the uplift in performance they expected.
In most cases, team performance was either static or undergoing slow improvement at best. In some cases it was decreasing.
On the surface the process followed was standard and common practice: to use differences between self and others from 360o, multirater, feedback in order to build development plans. Not surprisingly, the main protagonist in this process was the individuals’ managers and the main focus of attention was on self vs. manager perception differences.
At the local, individual, and team level there were definite benefits to this development planning. Improvements were seen within identified gap areas and the specific development taking place through the personal development planning process. However, at the business level the expected scaling up of this success into business outcomes was not forthcoming.
Objective:
Management Informatics was engaged to identify the root causes of poor performance improvement results from 360o feedback projects and decide on the most appropriate development to deliver an uplift in business results.
What we did:
We analysed the 360o feedback data from multiple sources, including the individuals and managers. Using this data, our investigation had to proceed carefully to take into account external factors which could influence performance results, such as team size, macro economic changes and experience.
With these factors accounted for we were able to address the client’s main concerns:
- What, if any, are the reasons behind poor business performance, despite using 360o feedback, linked improvement planning and individual progress?
- What steps should we take to give us the business results we need?
We were keen to support our client by building development planning guidelines that use evidence to take into account results outcomes as well as individual differences.
The Management Informatics team provided the following services:
| 360o Framework Testing |  Confirmation that the competency framework measures are valid |
| Analysis expertise |
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| Development planning | Building development planning criteria that link feedback with results |
Outcome and benefits:
The investigation into the 360o feedback and how it was used produced some very interesting insights and useful results.
The vast majority of individuals used feedback with their manager to work on development plans. This was the activity expected to deliver the targeted business results that were not achieved. We found that the manager feedback was not the most appropriate feedback to use in order to drive business and individual success. In fact, in some cases, there was evidence that this limited approach would actually reduce performance overall.
The underlying assumptions of this approach were challenged by our investigation and the result meant a much more relevant set of developmental goals designed from only the most appropriate 360o feedback, less wasted effort and more results focussed development.
Some of the benefits of our findings were:
- Identified the root causes behind the poor development/performance link. This deeper understanding of how development delivers results in this business is now fundamental performance improvement
- Uplift of development from the local to strategic, business goal focussed, activity
- Challenged the assumptions behind personal development planning and created a new model for development planning appropriate to the business
- Development of a clear set of guidelines for use in performance planning aligned to the new development model
- Stopped inappropriate development that leads to a reduction in performance
If you would like to know more about our approach you can contact us
Related Material
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The main issue for our client was that their 360o feedback and development process seemed to be holding back performance, and in some cases, even encouraging poor performance