Guide to conducting your own 360° review
A step-by-step guide to an uncomfortable level of self-awareness
Welcome entrepreneurs. I’m so glad you’re here.
We talk a lot about self-awareness in this newsletter and for good reason — research shows that self-awareness (defined as the delta between how others see you and how you see yourself) is the primary leadership difference between successful leaders and less successful ones.
In my work, I’ve come across two tools that are the most impactful on the journey to self-awareness: meditation and the 360° review.
As a reader of this newsletter, you’re probably well-versed in both the how and the why of meditation (here’s a primer if you’re not), but many people don’t have the resources to commission a full-on 360° review.
Until now.
Today we’re releasing Inside-Out’s comprehensive guide to conducting your own 360° review.
Among my clients, there’s a big difference between working with a founder/CEO who knows something is off but isn’t sure what they want to do about it, and working with a founder/CEO who has commissioned a 360° review and is clear on the specific changes they want to make.
With clarity, everything just moves faster.
If your business has the resources, hiring a firm (like our team at Inside-Out) to conduct a review is the way to go. It’s a high leverage investment and a key tool for charting the future for the CEO and the company.
However, a commissioned 360° review can run anywhere from $3-10k (or more). So if you’re not there yet but still want to accelerate your growth a leader and professional, this guide is for you.
Inside you’ll find:
Step-by-step instructions for building your list and asking interviewees to participate
A guide to conducting your own interviews, including questions to solicit the most helpful feedback (instead of people telling you only what you want to hear)
A framework for analyzing responses and interpreting feedback to prevent unnecessary (and sometimes unhelpful) changes
A process to identify your specific growth areas, and get to work
The guide is built as a Notion template to make it easy to navigate as you go through your journey. If you don't already have a Notion account, it is a free online platform anyone can use. We include instructions for you on how to sign up for a Notion account, and duplicate our template into it.
Why wouldn’t you do a 360° review?
There are typically two reasons that people don’t take the plunge and get a 360° review done. 1) It’s too expensive or 2) it’s too scary. Or both.
With this guide, we’ve eliminated #1.
But #2 is real. Especially if you’ve never done it before, it can be deeply scary to consider finally finding out how other people experience you.
It feels easier to simply stay in your CEO bubble, believing that everyone thinks you’re great because nobody’s said anything different.
It’s hard to develop self awareness. Doubly so if you’re a leader.
But if you’re here, I know you can do hard things.
And I promise it’s worth it.
Huge thank you to Kat Kajganic, our resident Notion expert and all around design aficionado, for helping this guide to see the light of day. It never would have happened without your help. Big love ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
If you liked reading this, feel free to click the ❤️ or 🔄 button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏
Want to dive deeper?
If you liked this, check out this list of my top posts, read and shared by thousands of entrepreneurs.
Here are a few of my favorites:
The secret to leadership (why authentic leadership is simply more effective)
How to pitch a big vision to investors without setting yourself up to let people down
Executive Coaching for Entrepreneurs
I’m an executive coach and the founder of Inside-Out Leadership, a boutique leadership development agency built by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs.
Through a unique combination of deep executive coaching and strategic execution support, Inside-Out has supported entrepreneurs leading some of the fastest growing companies in the world to develop into world-class leaders, and build high-performance, low-drama companies.
We coach leaders how we want to be coached:
Focused on the person, not the role.
Focused on results, without the fluff.
To learn more about working with I-O, click here.
While I generally don't recommend doing a 360 Review yourself, it is a good idea to have your cofounder or other team member manage it. Bring able to collect feedback, consolidate and present it is a skill but most capable people can do it well enough.
Here's the format I use, it's very simple and easy for anyone to master: https://www.breakingpoint.tech/p/personal-growth
I've not heard of the high price tag, I do 360 degree reviews for free for my coaching clients. Is it common to pay for it beyond what you pay for coaching?