Imagine a similar situation: a manager who was reluctant to engage in the process in the first place asking her direct reports, peers, and boss for feedback on her effectiveness as a leader. If the group’s reply is poorly timed, focuses only on negative behaviors, or is difficult to understand, the purpose of the effort will be lost. Worse yet, the manager may react in the same way the queen did—by getting angry and finding ways to get even with those who are responsible for the feedback.

While 360-degree feedback is a powerful tool—a mirror that reveals a manager’s effectiveness from the various points of view of those he or she works with closely—like the truth-telling magic mirror, it may give us information we did not expect and do not want to hear. That is why decisions concerning the forum for presenting and interpreting the feedback can be as important as choosing the method of data collection or the instrument.

While you may be gathering data on the right behaviors and ensuring that they are reliable, if the feedback is presented poorly and recipients are not able to make sense of it and use it to plan their development, the entire process will have been a waste of everyone’s time. As a result, people may harbor ill feelings toward those who initiated the process and those who provided the feedback. And beyond that, they will learn nothing about themselves and how to improve their effectiveness within the organization.

In this chapter, we will take a look at what you need to do to help recipients get the most out of the feedback process. We will review the barriers that keep people from accepting their feedback, your options for how to present the feedback, and a typical work session agenda.