Assessments Today

Video Training Series on Leadership 360

I have completed four videos on Leadership 360 degree assessments with training on how to use and administer the assessment that I offer at Assessments Here. The training is over 100 minutes of straight content and almost an hour of solid information in using any 360 leadership tool.

Module 1 is about using 360s within an organizational setting and is long and more theoretical. (27 minutes)

Module 2 gives a brief overview to Leadership and 360′s and what you can expect to find out there. (11 minutes)

Module 3 is the meat and potatoes.  Here I go over the key points of administering and debriefing a 360 when you use one in coaching. (24 minutes)

Module 4, I take you through a sample Leadership 360 Assessment and talk about what it “means” and how I might debrief it.  This is the “technical” part of the training and is only necessary if you choose to use my Assessments Here profile. (42 minutes)

There are two purchase options as outlined here: http://www.assessmentshere.com/2011/07/video-training-series-on-leadership-360/

360 Degree Overview Training (video)

I have just completed four videos on Leadership 360 degree assessments with training on how to use and administer the assessment that I offer at Assessments Here. The training is over 100 minutes of straight content. Here is a two minute video highlighting what is covered.  It is now for sale as a product.

There are two purchase options as outlined here: http://www.assessmentshere.com/2011/07/video-training-series-on-leadership-360/

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Video overview will take about 10 seconds to load.

 

Debriefing Assessments: Rater Groups - Step 3 with Pam Boney

 

This is the last short video I took during Tilt 360 Leadership Predictor™ Certification with Pam Boney, CEO of Tilt Inc. She spent some time teaching participants how to debrief an assessment properly. This is Step 3  of 10 and discusses the importance of going over the rater groups - who is in, who was included and who might be missing.

Debriefing Assessments: Values, Culture and Job Fit - Step 2 with Pam Boney

 

This is the second short video I took during Tilt 360 Leadership Predictor™ Certification with Pam Boney, CEO of Tilt Inc. She spent some time teaching participants how to debrief an assessment properly. This is Step 2  of 10 and discusses the importance of fit - values, culture and role. Pam specifically covers the aspect of role fit in this video.

Debriefing Assessments: Context - Step 1 with Pam Boney

 

I had a great time working with Pam Boney, Chief Executive Officer of Tilt Inc. and doing some coach certification training in Italy.  Like most of us, Pam hates to be recorded but she was gracious enough to let me capture some of her thoughts regarding how to debrief her assessment the 360Tilt Leadership Profile. Everything she discusses in these videos relates to any 360 degree that you might be using.  So take a look at one of the best.

This is the first of three short videos.  The first looks at the situational context. While there are 10 steps to Pam's approach, the other seven relate more specifically to her 360Tilt Leadership Profile.

Tilt 360 Leadership Predictor™ Certification - Milan - March 4&5, 2010 - Time Sensitive

TILT 360 FIRST COACH TRAINING IN EUROPE

Attention all European coaches - seeking great training in assessments and wanting ICF credits.

Instructors: Pam Boney, PCC, CTC, Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Tilt Inc. and co-facilitated with Roberta Hill, MCC, MBA

Dates: 4-5 March 2010

Location: near Milan, Italy

Program accredited by ICF for 16.5 CCEUs

An in depth and experiential learning approach designed for experienced coaches, consultants and HR professionals.   Some familiarity with 360 assessments desired but not required.
 
What you get out of our program?

• Certification class for the Tilt 360 Leadership Predictor

This full version class includes two full days of working with the tool and is our most thorough class for learning the model

Once certified, you will be able to use three assessments for Leadership Development:

• The Tilt 360 Leadership Predictor
• The Tilt 360 Team Climate Predictor
• The Tilt 180 Mentor Survey

 

Venue

 Arona is approx. 20 minutes from Milan Malpensa Airport, on Lake Maggiore. If you want to go to Milan, there is a direct train connection that takes 55 minutes to downtown Milan.

Hotel Atlantic
Viale Repubblica 124
Arona
Italy

Hotel phone number country code 39   0322 46521, hotel@atlanticarona.com Mrs. Manuela

www.atlanticarona.com

• Single room B&B €85,00 per night.
• Double room B&B €125,00 per night
• plus €30 per person/day (2 coffee and lunch)

 
Cost

• $1,495.00 (program costs only)
• plus 60 Euros for coffee and lunches for the 2 days payable separately

Program information: http://tilt360leaders.com/training/certifications
 
Register online: http://tilt360leaders.com/training/calendar

Don't Get Caught Naked

By Guest author Mary Jo Asmus, President of Aspire Collaborative Services LLC

A Timeless Leadership Fairy Tale

A favorite childhood fairy tale is Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes." I still chuckle when I think of the emperor being duped into wearing a new suit of invisible cloth in an attempt not to appear stupid.

The emperor's followers went along with the guise during a royal procession to show off his new clothes until a child pointed out that he was, indeed, naked. The audience watching the procession caught on and the emperor was found out. The author of this tale was brilliant. A children's story written in 1837 has become an enduring tale of clueless leadership and less-than-truthful followers.

Just like the emperor, there are leaders who will do everything possible to avoid appearing stupid. The problem is that they are often clueless about themselves. One of the ways leaders can avoid being caught clueless is to obtain pure, unadulterated feedback about how those in their circle of influence perceive them. A 360-degree assessment is the best way I know of to get this kind of feedback.

Getting Honest Feedback

I encourage my clients to continually ask for specific feedback from their peers, their manager or their employees. This kind of feedback can be quite useful. However, like the audience passively viewing the naked emperor, followers will not necessarily provide honest feedback. A leader should not be misled into believing that the feedback he receives is entirely truthful. All kinds of human dynamics in the workplace will prevent others from being completely honest when asked for feedback.

This is where a 360-degree feedback tool is useful. This tool, whether electronic, hand written or an interview, is administered by an outside party on behalf of an individual (generally regarding facets of an individual's leadership). Multiple sources are used: the person's manager; direct reports; peers; and sometimes others such as customers, clients or vendors. The information is gathered in a way that maintains confidentiality. A report is then provided to the leader about her patterns, including areas of strengths and opportunities for growth.

Treating 360 Degree Feedback with Respect

The feedback from this tool is intended to be developmental, not disciplinary. The information gathered is meant only for the eyes of the individual for whom it was gathered.

The information obtained must be treated with great respect. A skilled professional who is familiar with providing this kind of feedback can offer interpretation, put it into perspective, and give support around the results obtained. This support could include assistance in setting goals and developing an action plan, as well as ongoing coaching to achieve the goals.

In my experience, 360s are invaluable tools to provide a reality check and a way to avoid being caught naked. Because your followers, like those watching the emperor's procession, will rarely tell the truth to your face.

Mary Jo Asmus is a credentialed executive coach, speaker, and president of Aspire Collaborative Services, a leadership solutions firm. Her blog, "Intentional Leadership", furthers the dialog of the importance of healthy, sustainable relationships to leadership.

Copyright 2009 Business Review. Reprinted with permission.
For an online version of click here.

Leadership issues not being addressed by today's 360 assessments.

Here is my latest article from my ezine last month:

There has been a move in the last 10 years to focus on strengths as opposed to working to improve weaknesses.  It makes a lot of sense to try to leverage what is working well rather than trying to "fix" something that really may not need to be fixed. But there comes a point when even this strategy begins to break down.

What do you do when a leader begins to OVERUSE his or her strengths?

Probably the most listed competency for leaders today is the ability to inspire and communicate a clear vision.  The second  competency mentioned today is trust or trustworthiness. Both are very different skill sets.

What about your leaders who have the trust of staff but not the vision?

What about your leaders who are visionary but do not display the wisdom of objective reasoning?

We talk a lot about results based leadership and look where that has got us.  While the bottom line is important so too are other things.  Which brings us to the move towards values-based leadership. This is something that fits for me much better but I also notice the potential for a misalignment in our global and diverse world. To date, Kouze and Posner's Leadership Practices Inventory is the best to address these issues and their research is global. But something was missing - for me it was about the imperative for collaboration.

So at 1-Focus International we embarked on the development of our own Collaborative Leadership 360 model and assessment to meet the needs of globalization and amalgamations.  Then a friend and colleague showed me the research on the Tilt360.  I recommended it to my business partner.  We decided to adopt this new and very exciting character based system. We are convinced that it, along with coaching, is the best and most innovative way to predict and build leadership today.

1-Focus has become a fellow of Tilt Inc and will be the preferred independent consultant in Europe.  This assessment has coach training that is recognized by the ICF for credit.  If you want to take your leadership or your coaching practice to the next level please contact me.

Graphic copyright and used with permission:

A User’s Guide to 360 and the dangers of 360 in Performance Appraisal

I referenced tA User’s Guide to 360 by David Lassiter which was published in Performance and Instruction Journal in my own article with WABC some months back (Permanent Link). The company Leadership Advantage recently informed me of their own link to the article. I updated the hpost but wanted to share the source with you – it is simply a great article. A User’s Guide to 360 by David Lassiter Why reinvent the wheel?

A related article by David that you might enjoy as well is: The Dangers of Using 360° Feedback for Performance Appraisal which first appeared in appeared in HR Executive Magazine. If you check around the site, you will find some other very interesting articles that have been purchased for use from my colleague, Patsi Krakoff and her Customized Newsletter Services.

Best Practices - Leadership and Virgin (no not that kind of virgin)

I was going to start a new category "Best Practices" but I that is a dangerous thing.  The moment some organization is pointed out as a "leader" or "best" it is bound to be the kiss of death.  What happened to all those firms Tom Peter's wrote about in "In Search of Excellence or Jim Collin's "Built to Last"?  Oh Really?

That said, it is interesting to read about what some high profile firms (and those that aren't) are doing to stay competitive, or successful or even change with the times.  Here is one such case that is using 360 feedback processes.

Virgin Atlantic introduced a leadership development programme that was led by business objectives rather than HR processes, and fitted into the organisation's long-term goal of increasing profits by 7%. The leadership team started by identifying the traits it believed had made Virgin successful and followed this with a 360-degree appraisal of the management team's strengths and weaknesses.

 

What I find to be of interest in the article are the 11 steps that they have developed to guide them through the process.  this is a systemic approach and that is how assessments should be used.  Assessments are one tool in an overall program that is dynamic and and interdependent.  I find that I take little exception to what they are doing in principle.  Let's wait and see how successful they are at first the implementation and then the integration into the culture. 

Guide to leadership development in 11 steps

1. Understand the present and future context of the organisation and the sector in which it is operating.
2. Know what you are going to require of your leaders in the future. This mean you need to focus on potential performance.
3. Make sure any programme is tied into other company activities, such as secondments, mentoring, cross-functional working and masterclasses. It should mot be a standalone project or seen as solely an HR initiative.
4. Involve existing leaders by asking them to describe current and future leadership challenges.
5. Use a variety of development mechanisms. These might include group sessions and one-to-one work, experiential and paper-based activities, company projects, feedback and coaching.
6. Develop a framework on which to build the design of the programme, such as leadership competencies or principles.
7. Reflect company culture in the programme design. Make full use of the organisation's values and use the programme to bring them to life.
8. Give participants the opportunity to voice their career aspirations.
9. Wherever possible, involve line managers before, during and after the programme.
10. Build personal development planning into the programme. Individuals rarely complete development plans after the momentum of the programme is lost.
11. Carry out an evaluation of the programme at both a behavioural and results level through 360-degree appraisals (undertaken both before and after), surveys and performance data.