@Spirocks

Just Think

360 Degree Feedback Explained

WHAT IS 360-DEGREE EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK?

Often referred to as 360 reviews or 360 assessments, 360-degree employee feedback provides a all encompassing view of an employee by gathering feedback from an employee’s whole team. That includes their manager, peers and direct reports. Sometimes, external salespeople or vendors who work one on one with the employee are included as well.

WHAT MAKES 360-DEGREE REVIEWS DIFFERENT?

This multi-direction feedback differs from what typical annual performance reviews provide in the following ways:

  • Omni-Directional look. Standard performance reviews involve the employee getting feedback directly from their manager. While a manager’s perspective is likely t be the most important, it’s is also limited. 360-degree feedback involves feedback from many team members, providing a well-rounded feedback loop for an employee. Let’s face it, people act differently around their boss than around their subordinates and peers.
  • Forward-looking. An accepted rule of thumb is that traditional performance reviews evaluate what has happened; for that reason they are backward looking – how have employees performed in relation to their goals. That is very different than 360-degree feedback, which is less evaluative and more forward-looking – what is this employees’ skills, triumphs, strengths and yes weaknesses. What can the individual do to take developmental steps and become even better.
  • Constructive Feedback with a Positive Vibe. The overwhelming tendency is that an employee’s peers are much less likely to provide negative or even constructive feedback if they think it will negatively impact someone’s standing in the company negatively. For that reason well constructed 360-degree assessments include many non-evaluative questions and that can prove essential to getting honest feedback.

ARE 360S IMPORTANT?

360-degree multi-directional assessments comment on important competencies and provide valuable insight for managers, as peers and direct reports provide priceless developmental feedback that may not otherwise be shared.

When the goal is measuring valuable employee skills and attributes, few exercises are as effective as 360s. With them we can quantify things like, teamwork, leadership, interpersonal communications, decision-making, delegation, and collaboration. By their very nature our jobs are a continual journey, we can cop-out and only dig deep enough to see how well employees get their jobs done, instead of taking the leadership role by helping them develop into the most productive employee they can become. 360s help paint a picture that allows managers and employees look at competencies that enable them and their organizations as a whole get better.

—– Thanks for checking this out hope it explained 360s in a way that can help. -Spiro 

 

Dear Christos, about your Baptism…

Yesterday we baptized my son Christos in the church where his godmother and I both were baptized and where the man he is named after grew up as an altar boy. We were lucky to do so in front of his loving extended family and friends.

Once the baptism began, I realized he was in my presence but I wasn’t in control of him for the first real time as a parent. I felt as though he was outside of my bubble, a place where his beautiful mother or I wasn’t 100% able to intercede and soothe him.

Those moments were his first chance to be himself and handle things. For better or worse, and in rapid succession, he would be:

  • held by a stranger
  • completely naked
  • anointed (rubbed down with oil all over his body)
  • dunked three times into holy water
  • have oil tapped on him again in honor of the father the son and the holy spirit
  • have a few pieces of his hair cut off
  • then handed off to be cleaned up.

It could understandably result in a very angry child, whose participation would need to supersede coerced and morph into forced, or… it could go better than that. This video is the baptism process happening.

Needless to say I was proud of how my little man, who came into the day unknowing, handled himself and stood tall in the water.

The last time I stood in that spot, it was to say goodbye to a Christos who had stood right there as I was baptized. A man whose pride in me is still a source of motivation to this day. His words of love and expectation, of stewardship and determination, and of irreverent strength and humanity, now have a renewed purpose for me.

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My Christos, your Dad is proud of the way you participated yesterday, the way you stood tall in the water, and the way you handled the first moments where it was up to you to do things your way. You are on your way and together we will find the path of your youth, I promise to guide you with all I have and look forward to the day you can show me the way somewhere new.

You are a source of an intense pride that I have never known before, thank you.

– Love Dad

P.S. In particular his grandparents have been such an enthusiastic part of his early days, and immeasurable help to his mom and I, that I must say thank you right here for all you have already done. With you as role models we have a lifetime of catching up to do.

Dear Chefs and Bartenders – part 2

“I’d rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve.”—Xavier Cugat, born 01-01-1900

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There is a point in time when creating something that people want, in an extremely well done way trumps doing something you want to do regardless of whether it is wanted. That point in time is when you decide this is a career to make a living and not a hobby.

Happy New Year. Make it Delicious.

Dear Chefs and Bartenders

John Tesar has a few words for you:

Delicious is more important than creative because everything’s been done before. You’re not going to reinvent the wheel. At this point, after the post molecular era and the compositionist era, where basically commercial artists have gone into the food business because its more lucrative for them financially. A lot of the artsy fartsy food is beautiful in pictures and some of it is beautiful in its presentation, but it’s soulless in the eating of it. Because it’s composition, it’s not cooking.

Amen. Happy New Year. Make it Delicious.

-Spiro

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Unapologetic Marketing

Don’t keep acting like you are the only one with a product trying to fill the consumers’ need. That’s just plain doubtful, in most cases the consumer has the choice of hundreds of competitors, and you need them to choose you. With that in mind, are you paying into a marketing scheme that simply states the statistics about your widget and doesn’t really differentiate you on any other meaningful level?

Stop Doing That.

confrontational marketing

It is time to change course, to stop pretending there are no competitors out there, there are. How about you compete with them by acknowledging their existence, you have nothing to lose because your product is better, right? If its not definitively better, stop worrying about marketing and start making it better… then come back and pick up here.

Still Reading?

Lets create a confrontation of sorts, an unabashed comparison, be unapologetic about being better and saying it out loud. Why? Because you are better and you deserve more of the market, because consumers are sick of hearing the same old marketing messages and they are tuning them out. Nothing stands out from the crowd like a bold honest confrontation, a person invested enough to do that with a better product will gain more customers. That’s that.

Some Ground Rules

  1. First and foremost, be truly better. Don’t fake it, the only two people that will believe you if you are not truly better is yourself, and your mom, and that’s not a big enough market to succeed.
  2. Don’t make it personal and petty, and don’t pick a fight with a small time operation. Nobody likes a bully, be the David to a Goliath.
  3. Have fun with it, for example: incorporate pop culture or current events into the messaging, don’t come off as a technical nerd about your comparison.
  4. Understand the difference between hostile confrontational and proud differentiation, do the latter.

The specifics are up to you, if you want to see what I would do you are in luck. We are currently running a few of these campaigns and I will follow up with a post of the best example in a few days. Until then provide a better product than a big competitor and don’t be afraid to tell people about it.

Try Something

Here we are, today, a perfect time to try something new. Your business, your life, deserves it. To be honest even if what you try is an outright failure, if the product doesn’t sell, the new hire doesn’t work out, or the reception is just plain blah, you are ahead of the game. Now you know, you are not wondering what would happen.

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Then you try something new again, this time armed with the knowledge of two very important things.

  1. What did not work.
  2. That failure isn’t a fate it is a step.

Let’s be honest though, you probably know this in your heart. You probably won’t fail in any spectacular way. Maybe it won’t be as big of a success as you dreamed right off the bat, but it likely won’t be a flop either.

Tell Fear to GTFO of your planning, and make an educated investment in the unknown, in yourself, and try something new. Today.

Things Not To Do

One of my favorite authors, Ryan Holiday has a brilliant list of things not to do, which featured this closing argument:  As one philosopher put it, pretend that everyone else is hemmed in by predetermination but that you, and you alone, have been given free-will. Because when you give up the misguided notion that they are in control and focus solely on the fact that you in fact are in control, the whining petulance stops and the magnanimity can begin.

Now if you read the post, you will find a list of thirty things to stop doing which are more akin to everyday life, like moving on once you order your coffee instead of slowing down the line.

Trust and Permission – Gatekeepers and Goals

Lets take a pre-meditated turn off of our beaten path, and forge a new direction that creates surprise, builds trust, and forges connections.

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You are the marketer, the story teller, the ambassador, the person responsible for the way your restaurant interacts with the public. You have lots to share, and lots of motivation for your community to love your place. So how can we improve our ability to break through, to create lasting loyal customers out of those that we encounter with our message? (P.S. it doesnt matter if online, in person, or in print)

We get there by building trust, and getting permission. 

Think about it, how can we invest the time/energy/money in producing a piece of marketing material, whether a website, email, or old media ad without having cultivated an audience that wants to hear about it. The days of barging into peoples attention span are over.

The Art of the Want

Everything your business does to communicate with your community is intensely personal to you, but not to the community, don’t forget that. It is really not about what you want, if it was you would just send out a postcard to everyone’s house that said; “I want you to come eat at my restaurant tonight.”  The want we are after is the want of a guest to hear more about what you are doing, to hear about what you are doing in the future. You have to earn that want, by delivering what you promise in a way that builds trust.  Everyday my goal is to build trust, forge connections, and create surprise in the way my businesses interact with our guests. That goal is the fertile ground where the want that drives my business grows. 

Forge Connections… Why use the word forge? I say that because once you create them they are iron clad, for good or for bad, these are the stories that people associate with you and your business, they are the stories they tell their friends and family, but most importantly they are the stories they tell themselves.  Recently a woman called the restaurant early in the morning while I was doing some work in my office, when I answered I could tell she was stressed. She had forgotten to order a gift certificate for her Boss’s sister’s birthday that was that day. She was going to try and get someone to come get it from the restaurant and deliver it for her, and wanted to make sure we were there that early. So I said: “I can tell you are stressed, I hate that feeling, why dont you let me deliver it for you.” She was stunned, relieved and thrilled. I got the information for the delivery address and her address to mail a receipt. I took a ride and delivered the certificate, then swung by the woman’s office and delivered her a gift card valid for a martini on my tab that read: “I think you could use this today.” She was floored, and a connection was born. I guess you can say I forged a connection and created surprise all at the same time. With that I had permission to communicate with her in the future, and the best part? It was fun. You have to do something different, something original, something you create, for it to resonate and help you reach your goals. 

So today I suggest you invest in your creative soul and use it to help you build Trust and Permission. They are intertwined, and they represent the gatekeepers to your goals.