As many of you know, our labs have been hard at work building a much-expanded 360° review functionality for Sonar6. The core principal behind 360° in Sonar6 is that it’s really useful getting feedback from others for many things that are measured in a performance review. For instance, if I am rating a salesperson on how well they work with customers, it’s great to get feedback directly from customers.

One of the configurable aspects of our new system is that 360° feedback can either be anonymous, or can be attributed to the person who gave the feedback.

There is a tradition of 360° feedback being anonymous. When 360° reviews were primarily used as part of a leadership development framework, it was thought that anonymous feedback would be more candid. Of course, some will tell you it was also full of inaccuracies and injustice!

Newer uses of 360° (as in Sonar6) are less about developing leaders and more about gathering input into a performance review process for all staff. In these scenarios we are seeing lots of companies go down an open feedback path, believing that any challenges in getting candid feedback are outweighed by using the process to improve team dialog.

We thought we’d make a list of the benefits of each approach from our research.

Why anonymous is good

  1. People are more likely to give candid, objective feedback
  2. Reduces the likelihood of punitive consequences for poor ratings (especially from subordinates)
  3. Allows people with less forthright personalities to give feedback
  4. Allows management to couch potentially bad or damaging feedback

Why attributed is good

  1. If you are accountable for your feedback, you will put more effort into providing it
  2. Prevents “back-stabbing”
  3. Encourages team dialog and getting feedback out into the open
  4. Removes some of the ability to “game” the system
  5. Some opinions are more important than others (eg a close work-mate or a big customer), so it is useful to know
  6. It is easier to address an issue if you can understand where the feedback comes from
  7. Often the people with the strongest opinion (either very positive or very negative) want their feedback to be attributed
  8. It doesn’t feel like your destiny is controlled by a group of anonymous people

It was probably best summed up by one manager I talked to who said “The ideal is an environment where you can give direct open feedback, safe in the knowledge that you won’t be somehow punished for it.”

I am really interested in opinions on this. Please comment!