Human Resources: "American Idol" And 360-Degree Feedback Teach Effective Succession Planning

Toronto, October 12, 2006 - The meteoric success of TV's "American Idol"
has a lot to teach leaders and succession planners. Like the music business,
your organization has probably overlooked a multitude of talented people
because they are invisible outside the usual channels.

The good news is that there is a process readily available to help you
find these future stars. 360-degree feedback is a succession planner's
dream come true.

Just as "American Idol" locates talent unknown to the music industry
and record companies, 360 can help you find the highly skilled but unrecognized
employees in your organization.

It does this by compiling information from your talent scouts. They're
the responders to 360 in every corner of your organization, people who
know the hidden skills of everyone they work with.

Your Rising Stars

Is there a woman in your admin pool who is brimming with potential, respected
by her colleagues, and over-qualified for her job? Or a brilliant but
unrecognized guy in the mail room? Or talented leaders lost in the crowd
of middle managers?

The performance development experts at Panoramic Feedback re-designed
our 360-degree feedback system to find these people. The result is an
active investigative approach that spotlights high-potentials - including
those dispersed or hidden in the organization.

Their bosses know how good these people are, but they're not saying -
because they don't want to lose them. So you have to rely on another
source.

With the coming Boomer retirement crisis and talent crunch, succession
planners know that to ignore these future leaders is a recipe for defeat.
But they worry that it's hard to identify candidates other than the "usual
suspects", a small circle of senior or well-connected individuals who
know how to market themselves.

How To Find New Idols

Here's the simple process Panoramic Feedback recommends to organizations
that want to run a talent search that's as revealing as "American Idol".
1. Create a 360 questionnaire that covers the competencies most valued
in your organization today.

2. Supplement it with additional competencies that will be required for
success in the future. (Ability to assimilate new data and deal with
complex issues, encouragement of innovation, personal flexibility, integrity,
openness to learning, etc.)

3. Spread your 360 net wide, to assess employees in every area of the
organization.

4. While your employees are using their feedback to improve their individual
performance, generate an aggregate report that covers the entire 360
group.

(For more guidelines, visit http://www.panoramicfeedback.com/support/library.php.)

What You'll Get From An Aggregate

Your aggregate report gives you the big picture by combining the results
of all the individual 360s in the project. It lists the highest-rated
individuals throughout your organization. Reading it, you will discover
unexpected rising stars to introduce to your succession program. And
you'll get a different, and perhaps more balanced, view of the people
you have already identified.

Aggregate reports also pinpoint the individual development needs of your
candidates. Their individual competency profiles can help you get them
up to speed for new challenges, with seminars, placements, coaching and
mentoring.

Of course you'll want to give them the benefit of 360-degree feedback
every year.

A bonus is that your aggregate data can help you to fill current vacancies
more effectively. It reveals at a glance which individuals are highly-rated
in the core competencies required for any given position.

The ROI Is Positive

If expense is a worry, cost it out. How much would you pay a recruiter
to locate a handful of new candidates? $50,000? $100,000?

For that price, you can harvest succession-related data about thousands
of individuals each year. Your organization will also enjoy the efficiencies
of promoting from within rather than hiring from outside.

In another sense the succession benefit is free, since it rides on the
coattails of your existing 360-degree feedback program. And 360 pays
its own way, by guiding your current employees to develop stronger skills.

When it comes to succession planning, a star is born.

Summary

Succession planners can locate unknown talent, like the TV show "American
Idol", by using 360-degree feedback. Users of Panoramic Feedback have
found that aggregate reports from 360 are valuable for identifying skilled
individuals who are invisible to succession plans because they are outside
the inner circles.

About Panoramic Feedback

Panoramic Feedback (http://www.panoramicfeedback.com) is a respected
international provider of 360-degree feedback. As the first 360 system
to go online, in 1998, it benefits from the extensive organizational
development expertise of its founders. Panoramic Feedback also produces
a vendor-neutral resource kit for 360-degree feedback programs that includes
best practices and training guides.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Timothy Bentley
Panoramic Feedback
Photo:http:www//panoramicfeedback.com/images/smalltim.jpg

tbentley[at]panoramicfeedback.com
+1 416-532-0506
1-888-790-6793
http://www.panoramicfeedback.com

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