Feature

posted 25 Aug 2010 in Volume 13 Issue 1

Masterclass: Facing the truth

360-degree feedback can be very effective in law firms if carefully managed. Brendan Walsh, managing director of 360° specialist Bowland Solutions, provides some tips.

Five things you will learn from this Masterclass:

1) Why you should use 360-degree feedback

2) How to tackle the biggest concerns around 360s in law firms

3) How to time interventions for maximum impact

4) The key elements of successful 360° implementations

5) How to use your report to guide a great conversation

Not unlike other careers, technical prowess has been the backdrop to upward progression in a law firm. But, unlike other in sectors, lawyers’ whole careers have often been built on technical excellence and fee-earning ability alone.

Changes in law firms in recent years have led to many firms looking for more from their partners. A more rounded individual is now required and greater focus is placed on management and leadership capability. Technical excellence is expected as standard, while the ability to work well with peers, develop associates, contribute to the firm’s strategy and work across disciplines are taking a higher profile.

Firms have started to take a greater interest in how their lawyers achieve results, particularly the values and behaviours that will lead to wider success for the firms. Assessing this contribution requires new metrics and observations to be made rather than fees to be counted.

In a law firm structure, where the classic ‘manager’ relationship is less defined and less useful in assessing performance, the idea of gaining feedback on an individual from a number of sources has taken root.

Multi-rater feedback, more commonly referred to as 360-degree feedback, offers a useful method of getting feedback on a lawyer from a range of sources on a wide range of desired behaviours.

In this article I review best practice for using such a feedback method and consider when it is best used.

Use in law firms

The core principle of 360-degree feedback is that an individual benefits from gaining feedback on his behaviour from a range of sources. By improving his self-awareness, he can take actions that will build on his strengths and tackle development areas.

Without feedback from a range of sources, lawyers will carry on with what they deem to have got them to where they are today, or will struggle to understand why they cannot have the impact they seek on others or their own careers.

Benefits for law firms

The following are the most common reasons for using 360-degree feedback at law firms:

· tackling one-dimensional management styles that have proven successful in attaining partnership but cannot cope with the broader demands now placed on lawyers;

· raising awareness of the variety of behaviours that are required at the next career level (e.g. move to associate, salaried partner or equity partner);

· drawing out broad training needs for particular types of lawyers;

· as a lead into coaching programmes for certain lawyers; and

· as part of a wider cultural shift in firms.

Common concerns

Law firms have particular requirements that should be catered for in a 360 feedback situation and these issues can often block it before it has started.

Top concerns about 360-degree feedback

Anonymity: “Can associates safely feed back on partners?”

Confidentiality: “How do we convince partners this is confidential?”

Investment of time: “They don’t have enough time to provide feedback.”

Recipient’s reaction/ over-reaction: “What happens if….?”

Anonymity

A big issue is anonymity. This often drives from a fear that associates will be nervous of feeding back on partners, with partners seeking retribution on those who have given feedback. This leads to a request to ensure the partner can’t work out who has said what.

While reporting can be anonymous, most lawyers will be able to spot who provided which comments. You will need to sensitively tackle this underlying issue, rather than try to completely anonymise and aggregate feedback to avoid issues. Associates are very capable of sensitively and appropriately wording their feedback. And where associates are reticent, other partners often provide the feedback that challenges the behaviour.

A law firm client tackled this perfectly. Firstly, the HR team took great care to lay out the purpose of the 360-degree intervention (it was solely for developmental purposes). Secondly, they communicated effectively to both recipients and respondents. They did not suggest perfect anonymity; rather, they suggested that while respondents would not be named, they should assume that recipients would be able to work out who provided which comments. Thirdly, they discussed how to handle the feedback with the recipients. It is a positive if a recipient wants to discuss his feedback with respondents – you just need to position it correctly first.

By putting in the communication effort up front, the HR team was able to take away the fear from the process.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is easier to manage. The report contents should initially be confidential between the recipient and his debriefer. You can then make policy decisions – up front – and communicate who else sees the report. As with all matters of trust, you will need to do what you say you are going to do.

The client described above encouraged – but didn’t force – the recipient to share his feedback with the head of department. Every single person I debriefed decided to do that, and many shared their report with their team.

Investment of time

Another concern is the amount of time it will take to complete the feedback. This is the most critical factor.

To ensure you get a high completion rate on 360 in a timely manner, you should:

· focus on just the key questions (20 to 30);

· limit the questions you ask of peers to those they can answer (it is usually peers who have the most feedback to complete);

· allow a minimum of three weeks for feedback to be provided, and send reminders after about 10 days;

· go online: it is quicker for the respondents and easier for you to chase; and

· use your software to limit how many times any one lawyer is asked to give feedback.

Recipient’s reaction

Lawyers are highly intelligent people, but have often received little or no feedback of this nature before. Their personal commitment to the job is high and they have made many sacrifices to achieve professional success. There is therefore a great fear that they will react badly to ‘negative’ feedback.

This fear is almost always overdone. Lawyers may rarely have received feedback on their behaviour but, when they do, they often engage fully with the process.

One major caveat here – more than many other professionals, lawyers have a tendency to:

· try to rank themselves; and

· focus on the negative wording within their reports. It is absolutely critical that they receive their report from a trained debriefer who can assess their response to the feedback and ensure that they take a balanced view.

When to use 360 feedback

360-degree feedback has the most impact when used at particular points in a lawyer’s career or in the firm’s development.

A regional law firm client uses 360 feedback very effectively as part of their transitional processes for lawyers looking to advance their careers or as part of the assessment timetable.

Their process is as follows:

· 360 feedback is run to coincide with the promotion process;

· the 360 feedback is advertised as, and transparently is, developmental;

· external debriefers are used to allow the recipient to discuss their report without fear of the outcome and conversation affecting their promotion prospects; and

· other than a brief summary of the report which is agreed with the recipient, no scores are used as part of the promotion assessment.

Lawyers at key stages of their careers are all highly engaged in their own development, are willing to take on board the views of their colleagues, and are likely to follow through on action plans that are put in place.

Those giving feedback often use the process to give gentle advice on how to achieve objectives and warn lawyers when competing priorities are not being managed successfully.

Candidates for 360 feedback

360-degree feedback is best used for:

· associates looking to make partner;

· new hires;

· new partners;

· new heads of department; and

· new managing partners

More broadly, 360 degree feedback can also form a backdrop to your talent management/succession planning processes.

Ensuring success

Let’s consider the four core elements of a successful 360 degree feedback process.

1) create competency framework-related questions and ensure there is plenty of opportunity for free-format responses, as these will enlighten the recipient on why behaviours have been rated in a particular manner;

2) follow a simple, open and clear process;

3) create a clear and concise report that reflects the responses rather than tries to attach numbers to them; and

4) have a meaningful conversation around the report, ensuring the people giving feedback are well trained.

It is the last step that actually is the most important. No matter how great your questions or processes are, the key concern is how the recipient of the feedback will get his report. This will affect how he reads and interprets it, and what actions (if any) he will take as a result.

Debriefing

A debriefer should resist the temptation to tell the recipient her opinion on the feedback, the source of the problems and what to do about them. That is not the role of the debriefer. If you have a great report then you have all the raw material already.

The recipient should own his own feedback – the debriefer is simply there to guide him through it, ensure he understands the feedback, challenge him if he dismisses parts of the feedback and reassure him if he takes some feedback more strongly than an objective observer would deem appropriate.

If managed correctly, the conversation will be enlightening, thought provoking, challenging and lead the recipient to be ready to take a number of actions. It will reinforce some perceived strengths and highlight some strengths of which the recipient was perhaps unaware. It will also give insights into some of the problems the lawyer has faced in getting tasks completed or in managing others, and will give him the impetus to tackle known development areas. And, very often, it will highlight a couple of comments in the report that will stop the lawyer in his tracks and have him consider how he is being perceived by others.

Making 360 a success

A top-50 law firm client implemented a successful 360-degree feedback process. The process was part of a wider initiative which sought to bring fundamental changes in behaviours within the firm. The goal of the 360 feedback was to be the gateway to conversations within the firm that could not previously be held.

The highly successful implementation was achieved by:

· high level buy in – the top team completed the process themselves first;

· great communication on the objectives of the 360;

· using the 360 process as part of a wider firm initiative which lawyers were already engaged with;

· customising questions to their needs;

· working hard on the process, resulting in over 95% of questionnaires completed;

· using trained debriefers; and

· following through on action plans.

- brendan@bowlandsolutions.com