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I just completed the administration of our company’s 360 degree review procedure here at Openview Partners. It is a great way for any organization, especially an expansion stage organization, to get a real groundwork of communication between team members and focus on each other’s strengths and limitations.

We designed the review procedure around our mission, vision, objectives and values to asses each other’s progress as contributors to our company.

We came up with a summary report that rated each question between a scale of 1 to 5.

I asked each team member to:
 
Go through the report in totality and spend some time digesting it. While digesting, it is important not to become too preoccupied with certain data points. As challenging as this can be often when it comes to ourselves, it’s often more helpful to concentrate on the general consistent messages and themes, as opposed to the precise words a rater is likely to select in a particular feedback comment. It’s proportionately important to have an unprejudiced view of the strong points and development areas. We can sometimes ignore the strong points and focus too much on limitations.

Remember that one of our targets for the 360 was to help open up dialogue and communication within the team, in order for all of us to establish areas of improvement that will carry the most effect for the growth of the most effective team possible. Everyone took the 360 surveys quite seriously and put lots of thought into them. The feedback, positive and negative, is really a boon to each participant. It is important to remember the clear correlation that exists between accepting/acting upon feedback and success.

What steps should we take next?

·         After we’ve read through the reports and had some time to understand them, we individually think about the 1 or 2 key growth possibilities that would have the most positive effect on each person and on the team throughout the course of the year.

·         We will come together as a team to go over our individual results and request for feedback from the rest of the team regarding the 1-2 key growth opportunities we’ve pinpointed for ourselves. This will also be an opportunity to lay a positive foundation for the future so that everyone has a much better comprehension of each individual’s strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, team members can request for aid from the team to tackle growth areas. At that time, we will also talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the collective team.

Not bad for a Venture Capital firm huh?  We practice what we preach everyday and lead by example.

Brian Zimmerman is a Managing Director at OpenView responsible for delivering value-add consulting services to the portfolio, primarily focused on go-to-market strategies.

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