What is 360 Degree Feedback?

In its broadest sense, feedback is information you get about yourself from experience, from other people – or from life. It might be your annual performance review, a long-term client renewing a contract, or your reception when you enter a room. It can be formal or informal, direct or implicit, and either blunt or so subtle that you’re not sure what it is.

The term “feed-back” came from engineering, describing how energy or momentum are returned in mechanical systems. By 1920, it was used to describe sound loops in amplification systems – the piercing squeal we know from inexperienced microphone users or Jimi Hendrix recordings. But what has this got to do with leadership development? Feed correct information back to its point of origin – the employee – and voilà! Everyone tunes up for optimum performance!

During World War II, the German military began to evaluate performance by gathering ‘feedback’ from multiple sources. The term was later used in industrial relations when talking about people and performance management: Esso used surveys to gather information about employees in the 1950s. By the 1990s, most HR departments were using it, although paper-based processes required complex, time-consuming manual calculations. Nowadays, the Internet allows for sophisticated online surveys (allowing comparative or aggregate reporting and supporting multiple languages), and many firms use multi-rater feedback in developing talent, improving morale, aligning teams, solving problems, and boosting performance, productivity and profit.

So what specifically is 360-degree feedback?