360-Degree Assessment For Career Reality Check

You see yourself in a certain way. Sometimes that matches how the world sees you. Other times, not so much.

360-Degree Assessment

One of the best exercises you can do to get an accurate view of yourself and your career is a 360-degree assessment. This process provides a clear view of your career from many perspectives. By going through this exercise, you will get a picture of yourself from many angles.

A 360-degree assessment is a process where people from different areas of your life evaluate you. Your colleagues, partners, associates, staff, clients, friends, and family are asked to provide an evaluation. These people offer their impressions of your work, skills, and personality traits. They also furnish any other information that may be useful for you to get a better perspective on how others see you.

The feedback and information obtained from a 360-degree assessment is invaluable in helping you identify your strengths and weaknesses. It gives you information you can use later in building your personal brand, one of the key elements of the career revitalization process. The 360-evaluation may be uncomfortable, but sometimes it takes bitter medicine to cure the patient.

Career Assessment

You need an unbiased evaluation of your current career. Total objectivity. No holding back.

The best way to evaluate your career is to get honest feedback from people you work with every day. People above and below you. Your clients. Even close professional acquaintances at other firms.

Lawyers are resistant to evaluations, as most people are. We are risk-averse and don’t want to hear negative feedback. We don’t like to ask questions we don’t already know the answer to (remnants of Moot Court or Trail Advocacy), and we’re pessimistic and expect the worst. And, what if the evaluation is none too complimentary? We need to hear that in the worst way.

My experience, both personally and with many other people going through an evaluation process, is that we don’t see ourselves as clearly as we think we do. Some of us overstate our positive qualities and strengths and understate our negative qualities and weaknesses. Some of us are just the opposite. We don’t know our strengths and think we are weak in many areas. Whichever camp you fall into, your evaluation of yourself may not match the evaluators’ judgments in many respects.

If you’re lucky, you’ve been through a recent 360-degree assessment process. Go back and reconsider the feedback and comments with an open mind. Try to learn, not defend or rationalize.

Whether you have been through a recent evaluation or not, ask partners and associates you work with to give you a quick assessment. Ask support staff. Ask your clients. The following is a short list of open-ended questions you can ask:

• What is your general impression of me?

• What do you believe my strengths are?

• What do you believe I could do better?

• What are my best personality traits?

• What are the personality traits I could work on?

Ask in person or by email. Explain that you are trying to get a better idea of your strengths and weaknesses, and of personality traits that ingratiate you with others or put up a wall of separation. The key is to be sincere in your requests, ask others to be forthright, and not take too much of their time for the evaluation.

Give people a way to provide evaluations anonymously if desired. Follow up with a thank-you to everyone, even those who don’t participate.

You may also want a more thorough evaluation from a few key people in your office. Schedule a time when you are both able to be fully present. The meeting should be outside the office. In the conversation, probe areas critical to your career advancement. You need not be defensive or offer an explanation. Just listen and ask probing questions.

Evaluation Of 360-Degree Assessment

Many law firms are terrible at evaluations. The evaluators don’t like to do them. Lawyers worry that their assessments of others could be used against them, and so they don’t like to take definitive positions, especially if their assessment is positive. They don’t want such an evaluation to come back and haunt them if you don’t advance at a typical pace.

As a complement to your evaluation process, consider hiring a consultant to assist you. A consultant can be a buffer between you and others and can ask probing questions to get honest feedback. Many lawyers will be reluctant to participate in these interviews for the same reasons they are hesitant to give direct feedback in an evaluation. If you aren’t able to get an outside consultant to help with the evaluations, sit down with an expert and review your prior evaluations. An expert adds unbiased perspective. They will help you decode words or meanings in the evaluations, which you could otherwise misinterpret.

Many lawyers worry about asking for feedback outside of a formal process. They fear the request will be taken negatively and will harm their opportunity for advancement. But what’s the harm? If the lawyers you work with, and who are responsible for your career advancement, are unwilling to give you feedback, there may already be a problem.

Are you satisfied with working for months or years without being evaluated? Since you are likely a poor evaluator of your skills, how do you gauge whether you are leading with your strengths? How do you uncover your weaknesses?

Everyone is busy, and few lawyers want to give negative feedback that may affect their working relationships. But, if you don’t get feedback and evaluations, you’ve lost valuable information to help you take control of your career and get the most out of your career revitalization process.

When will you get a 360-degree assessment?

ABOUT GREG YATES:

I am a Keynote Speaker, Author, Business Owner, Lawyer and Lawyer Career Transition Expert.

I work with other lawyers and professionals to help them find their perfect job and create their ideal career to achieve success, prosperity, and personal fulfillment.

Download the complimentary Workbook from my new book Professional Prosperity For Lawyers: Find The Perfect Job And Create Your Ideal Career.

Professional Prosperity For Lawyers: Find The Perfect Job And Create Your Ideal Career