360

T

he 360 is an annual tradition utilized by Hegemony International to evaluate its own employees.  Although Hegemony did not pioneer the concept of a "360-degree review", under their corporate culture it has morphed into an extensive - and feared - process that has, at times, caused utter chaos within the corporation.

Before the latest 360, Alvaro was looking to climb his way up the corporate ladder. Now, he's looking for a job.
Esther De Koster, Business Analyst with Hegemony International

Thought Leadership

It would be an understatement to say that Reginald Howell is proud of this process.  He views it as a "force multiplier" at Hegemony and he frequently brags about its positive effects on corporate culture.  He has even gone so far as to publish an entire book on the subject, mainly geared towards establishing himself as a "thought leader" in the fields of human resources and corporate governance.  After the book was published, he spent extensive time on the lecture circuit extolling the benefits of Hegemony's unique approach to 360 reviews.

Side Effects

While the efficacy of Hegemony's 360-review process is a matter of public debate (outside the company, at least), there are certain tangible side effects that are acknowledged by nearly all observers - whether they are Hegemony employees or not:

1. Before implementation of the 360 process, Hegemony tended to favor smaller teams.  Since implementation, average team size has more than doubled.  This was a conscious choice on the part of Hegemony's executive management.  Smaller teams are far more intimate and they find it much easier to "circle the wagons" during 360 reviews - thus ensuring that no one on the team actually receives a bad review.  As teams grow, it's more likely that someone will eventually crack.  And once even a single team member starts airing everyone else's dirty laundry, the other team members inevitably follow suit.
   
   
2. Hegemony International has an amazing record when it comes to fighting, or outright avoiding, civil actions related to wrongful termination.  Once an employee has survived a couple cycles of 360 reviews, it's nearly impossible to convince a jury that they were unjustly terminated.  This happens because, even for the vast majority of employees who pass their reviews, the company is still left with hour-upon-hour of video evidence in which their own coworkers are viciously bad-mouthing the allegedly-aggrieved party.  For employees who feel that they were wrongfully terminated, it can be extremely challenging to find any law firm that will even consider taking the case.  And even those few lawyers who are game for the fight will rarely consider doing so on a contingency basis.
   
   
3. Although Hegemony routinely undergoes a process of "streamlining" their workforce (known internally as culling), the damage in those scenarios is greatly mitigated by the voluntary resignation of many employees prior to, during, and immediately after 360 reviews.  Employees who were already doubting their place in the corporation will often resign - frequently, on November 30th, the eve of the 360 process - rather than subject themselves to the strain.  Even employees who thought highly of themselves, the company, and their place in the corporate order will sometimes quit during-or-after their 360 review, once they've seen, with cold hard video evidence, exactly what their coworkers think about them.
   
   
4. Historically, some massive corporate scandals have been uncovered internally through the 360 process.  If someone knows that another employee has been doing wrong, those details frequently emerge during a 360.  For that matter, many employees have accidentally outed themselves - as they try to implicate others but get sloppy with their stories, thus indicating that they are the source of the malfeasance.
   
   

History

E

arly in the company's history, Reginald Howell embraced the concept of a "360-degree peer review".  He did so while searching for a solution to "performance bloat" - the situation whereby managers feel compelled to give all-but-the-worst employees "top" ratings.  Hegemony's earliest performance-review process called upon managers to rate each of their employees on a scale from one-to-five.  After several years of following this process Howell found that the average performance rating amongst all employees was 4.89.  This occurred because nearly everyone received a "5" on their performance review.  Additionally, it was learned that even in those rare circumstances where an employee received a rating below "5", it could usually be traced to some sort of interpersonal conflict between the manager and their direct report - as opposed to receiving a lower score because the direct report ostensibly deserved it.

I've never read a fairy tale more fanciful than our latest round of so-called performance reviews.
Reginald Howell, CEO of Hegemony International

Escalating Scale

His first approach to the problem was to expand the rating scale.  The idea was that, if managers had a greater range of scores with which to truly delineate their direct reports, they may be more inclined to rate at least some employees as something-other-than the absolute best.  The scale was first expanded to  1-through-10.  Then expanded to 1-through-50.  Finally, the official range "settled" to a scale of 1-through-127.  However, this did little to remedy the problem of performance bloat.

After more than a decade of using the 1-through-127 scale, the average employee rating came in at 124.9.  On teams of at least 6 members, more than 85% of them received a perfect score of 127, with most of the remaining employees receiving ratings in excess of 120.

This wickedly-persistent issue confounded  Howell until some years later when he implemented the 360 process.  To be fair, the 360 process alone did not cure all remaining issues of performance bloat.  But through a series of controversial tweaks, he did finally perfect a process whereby average performance scores are far below the maximum.

Execution

A

t first glance, Hegemony's 360 performance-review process is not vastly different from that which is utilized in many organizations the world over.  Rather than relying upon  managers to simply rate each of their direct reports on a predetermined scale, every employee is "empowered" to provide feedback on every other employee with whom they regularly interact.  This means, obviously, that managers provide feedback on their direct reports.  But those direct reports also provide feedback on each other.  And on their manager.  And even on their manager's manager (sometimes going multiple rungs up the ladder).  Managers rate other managers.  Employees rate employees from other teams.  In theory, nearly everyone may be tasked to provide ratings on almost anyone else.  If an employee had direct interactions with any other employee during the period being evaluated, they are invited to provide feedback on that other employee.

Guarded Feedback

As stated above, this everyone-rates-everyone-else approach did not magically cure the perceived problem of performance bloat.  Even when everyone is empowered to provide feedback (and... ratings) on everyone else, that feedback tends to be overly-rosy.  Some people foster a natural fear that their feedback will come back to haunt them - so they only say nice things.  Others are simply uncomfortable saying anything about anyone else that can, in any way, be perceived as "negative".  So performance bloat continues.

There's insults. There's hate speech. Then there's the vicious backstabbing that I received in my latest 360.
Davion Córdoba , Supplier Relations Manager with Hegemony International

He Said / She Said

Howell's innovation was to turn the 360 process into a series of successive rounds.  After the first round, everyone can see the exact feedback that was given on them... from everyone else.  Once an employee sees what everyone else had to say about them, they then have the opportunity to launch an additional round of feedback, whereby they can go back and amend anything they said about anyone else during the first round.  The second round continues until everyone in the cycle has had the opportunity to review all feedback that was given about them, and then amend the feedback they previously provided about everyone else.  This cycle continues unabated, through subsequent rounds, until it's judged that the latest rounds are providing no meaningful alteration to the ratings that have already been accumulated.

"Real" Ratings

The benefit of this system is that performance bloat is now a thing of the past at  Hegemony International.  Company-wide, the average 360-score (on the same 127-point scale) is... 24.2.  Since the implementation of this multi-round approach, no employee has ever achieved a perfect rating of 127.  In fact, if any employee's average rating exceeds the midpoint (63.5), they're generally assumed to be a stellar asset - and universally beloved.

Endless Rounds

The downside to this approach is that the 360 process can take significant time to complete (on some teams stretching over 30-or-more rounds).  Stress levels during the 360 process skyrocket throughout the company, with employees at a 32% increased risk of suicide during this period.  Homicides also spike during the 360 process.  In the most extreme situations, employees having traded a barrage of nasty words end up settling the matter by dueling.

Components and tools

V

ideo is the most critical component of the 360 process.  Whenever an employee rates another, their full explanation is recorded.  During subsequent rounds, that video is then played back for the target of the feedback.  For this reason, many employees refer to these 360 reviews as "The Reckoning" - because many people have had their formerly-glowing impression of themselves razed to the ground when they see exactly what others have said about them.

Participants

H

ERs play a central role in the 360 process. Employees do not simply sit down, alone, in front of a camera, and start talking in an ad hoc fashion about their colleagues. Every video session is carefully conducted by a HER.

The Spaniards knew nothing about performing a proper Inquisition, because they never had any HERs.
Lydia Tremblay, Vice President of Investor Relations with Hegemony International

Inquisition

A HER begins each session with a detailed account of the subject's activities - and the activities of the subject's coworkers - over the length of the review period in hand for easy reference.  (In corporate documentation, the subject is always referred to as the "confessor".)  The subject is allowed to speak freely, but nearly all sessions feature the HER actively prompting the confessor for information.  During subsequent rounds, these prompts often include playback of the video that's been recorded by others.  There are no practical limits as to the nature of the prompts that can be used by the HER.

The following are some examples of the types of prompts that may be supplied by the HER:

• You spoke quite highly about Robert.  But are you aware that this is what Robert had to say about you?  (Followed by the HER playing back Robert's words about the confessor.)
  
  
• Amongst your entire team, who do you least enjoy working with?  And why?
  
  
• You must identify one person in the company to be executed.  Who do you choose?
  
  
• Who would you say has the worst hygiene amongst your teammates?
  
  
• What's the worst thing that's happened on your team during this period?
  
  
• If we were interviewing to replace your manager, is there anyone whom you'd refuse to work for?
  
  
• A valuable item has gone missing from your desk.  Who's the first person you'd suspect?
  
  
• Who, if anybody, is less-valuable than you to the team?
  
  
• What's the biggest lie that you caught a coworker in during this period?
  
  

HERs are also empowered to ask any manner of leading questions - even when those questions lead to conclusions that have no known basis in fact.  Some examples of these questions are as follows:

• Why do you think Robert has so many affairs with your coworkers?
  
  
• What would it take for you to confront Sally about her hygiene issues?
  
  
• What can you tell us about the falsified reports submitted by your team?
  
  
• Patrick took an inordinate number of "sick days" last year, don't you think?
  
  
• Have you ever thought about how much total time Rosie spends in the breakroom?
  
  
• How do you explain the fact that Carol has never recommended you for a promotion?
  
  

Deep Fakes

HERs have even been known to deploy deep-fake technology to fabricate negative feedback about the confessor, that was never actually given by any other person, merely to see the reaction it will elicit from the confessor with regard to the person who supposedly provided that feedback.

Observance

T

he standard period for 360 reviews commences every year on December 1st.  The goal is to complete all reviews, and tabulate all ratings, by January 1st.  Although the process is presumably handled on an annual basis, ad hoc 360s can be invoked in cases where additional feedback is desired on a given employee.  This is particularly true when that employee is being evaluated for promotion - or termination.

I've been through three different managers over the last decade. Every single one of them was an insufferable jerk - until they had had their first 360.
Kamoto Arisa, Office Administrator with Hegemony International

Punitive

Although 360 reviews are ostensibly done for "positive" reasons, they've absolutely been wielded, at times, as a form of punishment.  They can be especially useful when management feels that a given employee is a bit too... "full of themselves".  Inevitably, the frank (and often... nasty) feedback provided during a 360 serves to knock someone down a notch or two.

Related Organizations

• Hegemony International