The Secret to Simple, Affordable 360 Surveys That Create Change.

As a fellow HR professional, I'd like to tell you why we created our 360 survey business. I'm Bruce Bennett, the CEO of STAR360feedback.

Years ago, I was invited to a meeting at a large U.S. assembly plant. The HR manager began the meeting by saying,

“We have spent three years and three million dollars rolling out one of the most popular leadership development programs in the country. We have not moved the needle on any performance measure in the building. We have invited you here to figure out what to do next.”

At the time, I was working in a different manufacturing plant on similar issues. Unfortunately, we had similar results. I struggled with getting leaders to model the behaviors they were asking their employees to adopt.

I was getting more and more discouraged about my career. One of the executives stopped me in the hall and said, “You should just give up. It’s been this way for years, and you’re not going to change things.”

As you can imagine, I thought long and hard about continuing down my career path, but I wasn’t ready to give up on my dream of helping the organization reach its goals. The leaders were great people but had a history holding them back.

Then I was reminded, organizations don’t change; people do. I reevaluated everything and asked how can we leaders change one at a time?

don’t notice the morsel of food stuck on your lip till someone points it out or you look in the mirror. And sometimes, it takes another person to say, “you did that very well,” before you are willing to try something a second time.

360 surveys were the logical next step, but the 360 assessments I had used were expensive and complicated. Often, we had to hire certified experts to interpret the data. The 360 reports offered prescriptive next steps, which didn’t fit our circumstances, so our leaders dismissed the recommendations.

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I left the auto company and set out to reinvent the 360 feedback process.

Together, with a team of like-minded experts, we agreed on the following design principles for 360 assessments:

Simplicity in the data collection to increase participation

Clarity the reporting, so insights are self-evident and don't require experts to understand

Guided Self-discovery that demonstrates how a leader's behavior impacts others, so the leader is motivated to improve

Self-evident next steps so the leader's development plan is personal, specific, and achievable

Affordable and scalable so the tool can be used throughout the organization

A 360 assessment must deliver the clarity, confidence, motivation, and next steps a leader needs to improve skills.

Now that 360 process is trusted by organizations around the globe, including NASA, Harvard, Disney, AstraZeneca, the U.S. Government, and thousands of organizations around the globe use our 360s to develop their leaders. We've pioneered self-debriefing reports that guide leaders through the development process, building better leaders.

Discover how we can lower your budget while improving your results.

Take a look at our self-debriefing report. We’ll share what we’ve learned, and even if you don’t use our products, you’ll discover how to enhance your current 360 assessment process.