Executive Development at The Digital Property Group
Here is an account of one-to-one executive coaching and 360 feedback. Nothing surprising in that! But, The Digital Property Group's (TDPG’s) use of 360 with its Directors has been exceptional in terms of its benefits. And, it is probably a story with a few lessons for all of us.
TDPG is the IT and marketing expertise behind leading property brands such as Primelocation.com and FindaProperty.com (see www.thedigitalpropertygroup.com). It’s a young, innovative organisation made up of software developers, salespeople, customer service professionals, etc… And, for everyone personal development is seen as a key element of business development. There are very close links between the company’s strategy/values and individuals’ personal development. So close that 360 feedback waited until a new business strategy and its values had been decided. TDPG’s 360 tool was then designed to provide precise feedback on the competencies underpinning the new strategy. Competencies such as… Managing and Developing Others, Vision and Strategy, Leading Others, and Innovation.
Online questionnaires for the 11 Directors were completed by themselves, direct reports, colleagues and the CEO. On average four direct reports and five colleagues completed questionnaires for each Director. Inevitably some individuals found themselves completing several questionnaires. The CEO, Mark Milner, completed nine. Sarah Bowerman, Talent Manager, completed seven. For those, and a few other, individuals there was a degree of “questionnaire fatigue”. However, 26 people at TDPG completed just one questionnaire each, so fatigue affected just a few people.
The feedback process involved two steps…
- One-to-one meetings between each Director and an external coach to review the Director’s 360 report, and consider options for improving performance.
- Followed by meetings between the Director and their line manager; either Mark as CEO or Richard Shamsi, COO. The meetings were facilitated by Sarah, and with the purpose of deciding practical changes and personal learning. Practical development actions were agreed and added to the individuals’ bespoke personal development plans.
Sarah says the two-step process provided impartial and expert coaching, the engagement/agreement of both the Director and their line manager, and on-going learning support from her.
Everyone learnt a great deal from their 360 feedback, especially from the critical feedback which highlighted the need for changes. In many 360 projects there is very little critical feedback, and that makes it exceptionally difficult to identify improvement opportunities. But, Sarah set up questionnaire rules which required a minimum of 15% favourable ratings and 15% critical ratings on each completed questionnaire. People were asked to think again if they saved a questionnaire without the required 15% and 15%. That ensured every questionnaire contained balanced feedback, and it made certain feedback reports would contain clear improvement opportunities. Sarah believes questionnaire rules were essential to the project’s success, but adds they need presenting carefully as some people felt pressurised to give critical ratings when ordinarily they would not have done so. The rationale was that there is always something we can do a little bit better and things that we do not do as well as those things which play to our natural strengths.
Every TDPG Director now has a clear personal development plan. Mark talks openly about his personal development plan, and asks others to support it. Sarah thinks his role in leading the project has been critically important. By getting feedback himself, publicly acting on the feedback, and encouraging others to get and share feedback Mark has led from the front. Had he not done so, others would have opted out of 360 too.
Next, the executive plans to meet, share their personal development plans, and review the executive' 360 feedback as a whole. From the online HR Report Sarah knows the executive team does one or two things relatively less well.
After such a success there is a real appetite for 360 feedback at TDGP. Directors have benefitted personally so much they want their team to benefit too. It is understandable, but Sarah is cautious about cascading 360 down organisations quickly. She highlights the considerable time and careful management TDPG’s executive project has taken. And, feels less well supported projects will inevitably be less successful.
More information
- Reduce questionnaire fatigue try (a) phasing completion over a longer period and/or in tranches, (b) limiting the number of people who provide feedback to each person, and (c) making it easy for a manager to decline to complete a questionnaire.
- An introduction to, and free resources for, coaching with 360 feedback, please see www.simply360.co.uk/360coaching/
- www.simply360.co.uk/simply360-software.pdf has an introduction to questionnaire rules which create balanced feedback (see page 6).
- Chapter 9 of the 360 Handbook has useful guidelines on working with HR Reports. Please see www.simply360.co.uk/handbook/