The Purpose of Using Multi-Source Feedback Is Not Made Clear. When people lack a full understanding of how the multi-source feedback will be used, anxiety, rumors, and suspicion usually fill the vacuum. What exactly is the business problem or opportunity this proposal is trying to address?

Effective communication is the most powerful tool for eliminating this type of resistance and building support. Whether your 360-degree feedback process is a major organizational intervention or a modest effort involving just a few people, you can never communicate too much or too often. When one of our clients decided to use 360-degree feedback as part of a leadership development and culture change initiative, the CEO held a series of meetings with senior people across the organization to explain why the project was important and what the expected benefits to the company were. In addition, a senior manager kicked off each session, answered questions about the business’s performance, and discussed why the 360-degree feedback effort was necessary and timely. After these meetings, the level of enthusiasm for the project was appreciably higher across the board.

People Are Not Involved in the Planning. When stakeholders feel their input has not been taken into account in planning the feedback process, they are much more likely to resist it. Partly, this is because it is human nature for people to support what they help to create. But apart from any ego issues involved, people want to be sure their issues and needs will be fully addressed before they will make the effort required to ensure the success of the process.

The most straightforward way to address this issue is to treat decision-makers and other stakeholders as clients or customers. This means taking time to understand their needs and involving them from the earliest stages of the decision-making process. We suggest involving all stakeholders in the clarification of the business need, the identification of the behaviors on which to give feedback, and the decision on which method will be used to collect the data. You should also capture their ideas on how to overcome any obstacles they believe may stand in the way of successful implementation. We have found that a task force or temporary committee works well as a vehicle to ensure the involvement of key individuals and build consensus.

Paul Leone, Ph.D., of American Express reports that “Participation in our 360 process increased when we upgraded to an electronic platform. The new platform allows business units to customize the behavior items that are used with their employees. Being able to change or add items they believe better reflect their day-to-day environment increases their ownership of the 360 process and their perception of its usefulness.”

Sean Woodroffe reports a similar kind of impact involving people at FGIC. “This was a new undertaking for us, and there was some apprehension from those leaders who had not experienced 360 before,” said Sean. “The more transparent we were and the more we solicited their input on the competencies that would measure and the flow of the process that would be used, the more comfortable and supportive people became.”

In this case, you must first clarify the cause of the negative perception. Is it based on first-hand experience, or is it a general impression? If the former, you can explain the strategies in place for ensuring that the problems concerning the stakeholder will be prevented from recurring; you can also ask for further suggestions on how to achieve this. If the negative perception stems from a general impression not based on personal experience, the best way to change the person’s mind is to let him or her experience the process in a way that is perceived to be risk free.

When we encountered resistance among members of a task force that was helping to plan the implementation of a 360-degree feedback process in a large chemicals company, we were confused. We had been working with them for a number of weeks to identify the key behaviors to be measured, and they had seemed enthusiastic and committed. But as we approached the phase of the project that involved actually using feedback, the group began raising questions about potential negative effects on recipients’ motivation and the problems associated with completing questionnaires honestly and accurately. As the discussion continued, it dawned on us that a lack of first-hand experience was at the root of their concerns. It turned out that only two of the fifteen members of the task force had ever received or provided 360-degree feedback. Our solution was to make the task force our pilot group. Once they experienced the process themselves, their anxiety and suspicion were converted into enthusiastic support.

We recommend that, to start with, 360-degree feedback be used for development only, particularly if this is the organization’s first experience with it. There is less risk associated with this approach, especially since individuals have more control of the data and how they are used. It also provides them with experience using multi-source feedback and helps them understand how it could contribute to other human resource management systems. If, however, the feedback is intended for use in appraisal and compensation systems, the focus of your conversation should be on the steps you have taken to ensure the integrity and accuracy of the data that will be collected.