What is 360-degree feedback?
360-degree feedback is input on a person gathered from their manager, peers, direct reports and sometimes customers, usually alongside a self-assessment. Responses are typically anonymous and rolled into a report the person reviews with their manager or a coach. The value sits in the gaps between how people see themselves and how others experience working with them.
Why it matters to a revenue leader
For a CRO, 360 feedback earns its keep on front-line managers. The CRO sees a manager's forecast and results, while the sellers see whether that manager coaches and follows through, and a 360 brings that second view to the surface. Expect modest change from the survey alone. A 2005 meta-analysis by James Smither, Manuel London and Richard Reilly found that rating improvements after multisource feedback were generally small, with more change when recipients saw a need to change and set goals around it. The same review found larger effects when feedback was used only for development, and noted that ratings gathered for pay or promotion decisions are more open to rater bias. Maury Peiperl's 2001 HBR article looked at why the peer part of these reviews creates friction.
Example
A regional director at a mechanical services company runs a 360 on each of her sales managers. One manager rates himself strong at coaching. His sellers describe one-on-ones that are mostly forecast updates. The director uses that gap to agree on one coaching goal with him for the next quarter and asks his sellers again at the end of it.
"When did each of my managers last hear, in a form they could trust, how their sellers experience them?"