BACKGROUND

Our client for this assignment was a medium-sized manufacturing company. Obsidian has worked with clients in the manufacturing sector for many years and has extensive experience of helping them to develop their management procedures and to develop their staff. The client chose Obsidian because of its experience in working with the client and its ability to tailor the work to their exact needs.

Nature of client's problem

The client had used 360º questionnaires successfully at group level and felt that the principle, if not the level of detail, of such questionnaires could be usefully extended to a wider range of managers.
However, it is also felt that leaving such managers on their own to consider, and institute, appropriate changes that could be desirable might not be sufficient.
In other words, while maintaining the confidentiality of the results more positive action might need to be taken to address important issues that come out of the questionnaire.
Staff surveys showed that a significant proportion of the people felt that little or no change resulted from the feedback they gave.

Obsidian Consulting were asked to put forward some ideas on how the situation might be improved.

Obsidian's experience in this problem area?

Obsidian has considerable experience both of designing feedback surveys and of providing 1-1 coaching to individuals in how to interpret, accept and respond to such feedback. It has introduced the use of 360º appraisal to several clients.

Objectives of Product/service offered by Obsidian

To enable managers to understand better how they were seen by their people, to have worked through the steps they needed to take become more effective managers and have this change seen by their people.

How the assignment was carried out

A 360º Appraisal/Questionnaire was carried out limited to elements relating to ‘management style’ and focussed on the behaviours that managers displayed. Following completion of the 360º Questionnaire exercise Obsidian held 2 one-to-one sessions with each manager (one of ½ hour, one of 2 hours)

Benefits for the client

More effective managers and higher satisfaction of people with the way they were managed.