Support your people to understand their strengths, development areas, and impact

Our unique 360° survey offers leaders meaningful insights into their key strengths and development priorities. This online survey elicits clear and candid feedback from participants’ colleagues and stakeholders. This allows participants to better leverage their strengths and identify ways to improve.

Help people build self-awareness

Many leaders overlook their impact on others. For example, they might not realise that they are dominating conversations. Or conversely, they might under-rate their skills and hesitate to make a full contribution at the leadership table. Building self-awareness, by gaining a better appreciation of how others see them, is a key step on everyone’s leadership journey.

Our online 360° survey asks participants to nominate people to comment on their leadership. Each respondent provides their views on the participants’ strengths and development areas. The participant then receives a report that integrates everyone’s responses, producing a comprehensive picture of how their leadership is perceived.

Easy, flexible, and secure

Our clients enjoy working with our 360° tool because it is:

• Easy. The survey is easy to use, and quick to complete.
• Clear. Our survey items are written in plain language.
• Balanced. Unlike many 360° tools on the market, our 360° report consistently provides a balance of positive and constructive negative feedback, to increase feedback acceptance and optimise learning.
• Targeted. Our survey items focus on the capabilities that differentiate average from exceptional leaders.
• Flexible. We have survey items designed to work with:
  • A range of participants (e.g. senior leaders, managers, and professionals).
  • Private and public sector leaders.
  • The Te Kawa Mataaho Leadership Success Profile (which we helped define).
• Customisable. We can design survey questions to reflect your organisation’s capability framework or specific requirements.
• Secure. Our 360° tool is secure, so you can be assured that information on your leaders is safe.

Easy to understand reporting

Our 360° report prominently displays participants’ key strengths and development priorities. With many 360° surveys, people often say “It’s a bit hard to know where I should focus my development efforts - there’s a lot to take in”. In our survey people comment on just the priority strengths and development opportunities. As result, participants receive feedback on the capability areas that are most applicable to them. The resulting report is rich in personally meaningful information and useful advice.

Integrated development support

Ongoing development support is key to the success of any 360° feedback programme. That’s why we’ve designed our 360° to work as part of an integrated development process.

Our 360° questionnaire and report are only the beginning. Our 360° tool helps participants achieve traction on their development goals. It enables them to:

• Reflect on their 360° report. Our self-reflection questionnaire encourages participants to fully absorb the information in their 360° report, and set goals for their coaching discussion.
• Participate in a coaching discussion. Cerno recommends participants meet with one of our skilled consultants to explore and get the most from their 360° report. Our consultants help participants to identify themes, plan actions to tackle their development objectives, and strengthen their strengths.
• Receive a tailored, action-focused development plan. This gives participants clarity on the way forward, and provides a roadmap for sustaining their development progress over time.
• Send a ‘message in a bottle’ to themselves, thank respondents, and share their development objectives. This helps participants to fully commit to their development.
• Participate in a follow-up Light Touch 360° process to gain feedback on their progress on their development objectives.

Proven, reliable, and with expert support

Cerno has been working with 360° feedback for over 20 years and has delivered more than 40,000 360° feedback surveys. Our 360° tool has been used to assist a wide range of people with their development. We have the experience needed to guide you around the pitfalls of 360° feedback, so that your 360° feedback programme is successful and effective.

Interview-based 360° Feedback

Personalised and in-depth executive development

An interview-based 360° allows executive leaders to gain deeper insights into their leadership. It is a personalised approach that minimises time requirements for respondents. Boards often feel that the seniority and complexity of a CE or executive role merits this type of approach.

A more personal approach

In an interview-based or qualitative 360°, a senior Cerno consultant interviews the respondents. The consultant often explores:

• The executive’s leadership contribution.
• The compelling features of their leadership.
• Their development priorities.
• Any other areas the executive would like to better understand. We then produce a personalised report highlighting the executive’s strengths and development priorities. We also meet with the executive for coaching. This assists the executive to understand the feedback, identify opportunities for development, and take action to strengthen their leadership.

In-depth insights

Boards ask Cerno to deliver interview-based 360°s because we provide:

• In-depth insight. Our personalised approach draws out candid, specific, and in-depth feedback. We get to the core of issues and elicit practical suggestions for improvement.
• Credibility. Our interview-based 360°s are backed by the expertise gained during 25 years in leadership development. Our senior consultants appear on the Leadership Development Centre’s independently-vetted coach list for ‘chief executives and system leaders’. This attests to our experience working with Chief Executives, and the esteem in which our senior consultants are held in the industry.
• Clarity. We write our reports in plain language. We distil complex feedback into key themes that provide a clear way forward. We have the experience and expertise to know how other executives have tackled similar challenges. Most importantly, we support participants with coaching that helps them translate insight into action.
• Discretion. We keep feedback about participants strictly confidential, so respondents can feel confident being full and frank in their comments.

Contact us

Contact us to find out more about how an interview-based or online 360° feedback process could support your leaders of all levels with their leadership development goals.