Four Motivations to Self-Improvement
For over a decade now, I’ve discouraged organizations from linking 360-degree feedback results to any form of personnel action. I’ve stressed repeatedly that a 360 diagnostic should be linked to follow-up developmental programs only.
Sometimes this provokes an interesting question: "If 360 isn’t linked to compensation or personnel action, what would motivate a person towards self-improvement?"
I reply that there are four good reasons. First, if feedback recipients think of themselves as professionals, they’ll want to work on any area of performance they discover needs improving. That’s the way professionally-minded employees are. Many of them even seek this kind of feedback for the purpose of self-improvement. They see themselves as life-long learners, they take responsibility for their development, and their pride drives them want to improve their scores.
In addition, most people in the workplace care about their coworkers. If the people around them report that certain aspects of their behavior are causing problems, the individuals receiving feedback will want to change these patterns, because they don’t like the idea of causing anxiety or frustration for others.
Furthermore, people are more concerned about career development these days. For a variety of reasons, people are likely to move from organization to organization several times during a career, and they’re concerned about their value in the marketplace. In this light, 360-degree feedback is seen as an opportunity to identify strengths and discover ways to get stronger.
Finally, when under pressure to achieve results, people are often motivated to improve the way they go about their work, which is what 360-degree feedback measures.
This doesn't mean that people in general are motivated to improve themselves. People who don't think of themselves as professionals, who don't care about the people they work with, who aren't concerned about being competitive in the career marketplace, and who aren't held accountable for results may not feel these motivations to improve themselves based on feedback.
Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., CEO, Performance Support Systems
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