Once the festive season is over and the new year approaches, people turn their thoughts to what they want to achieve in the coming year. If you are planning to set goals for 2024, either personal or professional, where do you start?
You may have a clear idea of what you want to achieve in the coming year. Many people’s objectives are less well defined, and they may need a little guidance or help to find their direction and make an action plan. Perhaps you have set your sights on a leadership role; maybe you want to manage your staff better to achieve your company’s goals, or perhaps you feel the need to improve your resilience to face the challenges of 2024.
If you don’t know where to start, try talking it through with someone. Just the act of verbalising your thoughts can help to crystalise those goals in your mind. Having a conversation about your aims and ambitions with a trusted friend, advisor or coach and writing down what you want to achieve is a great start.
Once you have a broad direction, asking for feedback from those around you can provide valuable insights into the strengths you possess, and the skills you need to develop, to give you the best chance of achieving your goals. Even if you think you know what you need to do to make yourself a better leader or a more resilient person, it’s worth getting the input of those around you. They have a different viewpoint and can see things that may not be obvious to you.
360 feedback can collect valuable advice from those around you which you can use to create an action plan. No matter what the subject of the 360 (Leadership, Customer Service, Resilience etc), it will highlight your strengths and your areas for development. You can use these valuable insights to craft a development plan, either alone, with a manager or friend, or with a coach.
A 360 feedback exercise asks you to select a number of colleagues, customers, friends and/or family (who you pick depends on what you are asking for feedback on) and asking them about your skills in your chosen area. Doing it online makes collecting feedback a hassle free process. Your chosen respondents are all sent an e-mail with a link to your feedback questionnaire, asking them to complete it by a certain date. You will complete a self-assessment, answering the same questions as your respondents. Our 360 system sends helpful reminders during the feedback process.
At the end of the feedback period, we generate a clear report for you which shows your perception of your skills compared to that of your respondents. Your respondents were asked for comments on your strengths and areas for development in each area; these are displayed along with the scores to explain the scores and give you some examples and ideas.
You can do 360 feedback all by yourself, or you can enlist the help of a coach who will talk you through the process beforehand, feed your report back to you, helping you to focus on the areas that will help you achieve your goals, and guide you through the process of turning feedback into an action plan.
If you are planning to make New Year’s Resolutions, start now with 360 feedback to help you craft SMART objectives for the coming year. 360 feedback can be completed in around two weeks, meaning your report can be with you to read and think about over the Christmas holidays, allowing you to set objectives and get started on the road to achieving them on 1st January, or even before.
i-comment360 have a range of standard 360 feedback questionnaires to cover six popular areas: Leadership, Management, Customer Service, Sales, Resilience and Emotional Intelligence. We can provide coaching sessions to help you get the most out of your 360 feedback and kick start your personal and professional development for 2024.
