I think it is a great idea, however the people in charge would have to be confident and secure enough to not have to feel they need to protect their ego at all cost.

I've been in a workplace that used 360 evaluations (similar to managing upwards). The process really helped our innovation, teamwork and communication.

Smart companies like Dell are realizing that employees' perspective on their managers are invaluable in improving their organizations. And, as a matter of fact, this kind of feedback happens all the time at all different kinds of companies. At places like Mariott, Macromedia, MasterCard, T. Rowe Price, Kimberly-Clark and Wachovia (which happen to be customers) - "360" feedback is an important part of their review process.

If FastCompany is looking for a solution, I know some people.

The point is very valid and it matters a lot when taking things forward. Not only for bosses but for anyone (parents, teachers, etc) it’s a good practice to listen to what others say about them and try to correct their selves when ever possible. This will improve confidence, trust and also the team spirit.

Bosses must know how their subordinates rate them as leader and the feedback must be honest. In the annual performance review of employees, I have asked them to evaluate me as their bosses. There's alot to learn from this and I have used the feedback to better manage the organisation.

At my company we use periodic, anonymous upward evaluations. And they are taken very seriously. My personal opionion is that they are an indispensable tool - not only for the manager herself but also for the bosses above.

Its crucial, however, to keep it anonymous. Otherwise what will you get but sycophantic politeness - or engender a lot of grudges?

One company who does this is Semco based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. CEO Ricardo Semler describes this in his excellent books Maverick and The Seven-Day Weekend.

Not only do employees in Semco evaluate their bosses, *all evaluation results are public to all employees*. Now THAT takes guts.

An overall score is calculated fore each manager, and if the manager fails to improve a low score, he or she won't last long in that position.

The other day I was talking with a friend in the health care field. He had been down the week before because he thought his performance evaluation from his boss would be poor. Now he was elated. His feedback turned out much better than expected.

As one who left the corporate world three years ago, the whole concept of feedback (up or down) seems foreign and quite silly. I think if I went back into the corporate world and my boss gave me feedback on my performance, I wouldn't be able to take them seriously.

I say kill the concept of performance feedback in business culture and return to the ancient ways of business.

At Xerox I have seen this practice in place for more than ten years! It's not the evaluation that matters, but rather what the manager does with the results. Good ones internalize and change - bad ones become defensive. Interesting idea, but like any other tool, it can be used for good or evil.

If managers could effectively communicate to begin with, performance appraisals wouldn't be such a necessary evil (upwards and downwards).
As it is, most managers would rather experience an un-anaesthetized root canal than spend the time rating employee performance.

And we wonder why everyone hates HR?

At my work place we have 360 deg feedback concept ...most of these feedback are so long and elaborate that nobody has the time to properly fill it, most people just want to get over with it and submit it.

The ancient way being that if your boss is terrible and treats you like crap, he must continue to get paid for it and think he is doing a good job?

Some companies have self appraisal concept wherein
the employee appraises himself, speaks about his performance areas and difficulties faced and his training or other management support requirement.
The the senior officer notes his performance and makes his own observation on the employee.Overall polcies of managing men for the growth of company
is framed based on the appraisal system.Though it seems OK,there are people who manage to move upwards simply by other ways and avoiding any adverse performance report by senior.The Appraisal be clearly distinguised from service report and Company must look into the Appraisal aspect more if it wants its workforce to be motivated and result oriented.The senior must assess and view the appraisal form of the employee meticulously while formulating policies on HRD.

evaluating bosses...well, not in my career, not if you want to last very long, in the American culture anyway. I note in South America, one of the posts above, everybody evaluates everybody, makes it public and if you, as a boss, don't do well by your employees, you're gone. Ok, if South America wants to run themselves that way. s'ok with me.
Strangely enough, in my career, my ONLY experience with my employees evaluating me, was as a Vice President of a Central Intelligence Agency sub-contractor in Arizona about 25 years ago. It was a good experience, I was shocked at getting high marks, because my experience in American industry was - you NEVER know. My employees and I always got along well, collegial, shirt sleeve atmosphere. Winks, nods, lots of quiet secrets, shared sandwiches and cokes in the middle of the night. I geniunely enjoyed being around them. I let them teach me.
All my other other experiences in American industry, I could never trust anyone below me or anyone at my level. Hardly ever.

Gee...guess it was about time Dell caught up to the 21st century and adopted 360 Feedback best practices....

Interestingly enough, 360 Feedback and Individual Performance Appraisals are included as a standard business improvement process in the Six Disciplines Business System. See http://www.SixDisciplines.com/ for more information.

As a former manager at KPMG/Bearing Point, I found upward feedback a great learning experience. It improved how I managed people, built teamwork, and used motivation instead of "hammer approach supervision". I just wish I could introduce the concept in my new realm of local government. But in the stressful consulting environment, it was very easy to fall into demanding management styles - after all that was how we were all treated on the "way up". What I found most valuable about the process was that my results were compared with my peers - and I could no longer use the excuse "well - I paid my dues, now it's their turn". I had to realize that my management style needed change - and it did.

Performance appraisals are good for nothing. You have to know how you're doing every day.

Unfortunately...

"Watson Wyatt's 2001 Human Capital Index (HCI), an ongoing study of the linkages between specific HR practices and shareholder value at 750 large, publicly traded companies, found that 360-degree feedback programs were associated with a 10.6 percent decrease in shareholder value."

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_6_47/ai_87461017

OK, correlation does not imply causation - it could be that the company was having problems BEFORE they tried 360... but it does show the the impact is not necessarily beneficial.

S.

We used these just recently and I'm trying to decide if it was beneficial. I lead a team of 12 in a marketing office. I got 10 great evals back, and one terrible one and one who didn't respond. The terrible eval was mostly personal stuff -- and it's really affected my job performance and confidence, at a time when I just turned down a job offer and decided to stay. Perhaps, I need to have tougher skin and that is all there is to this. But, since I edit writing for a living, I'm failry certain this is from a person with whom I thought I had a great working relationship and I'm devasted by the fact that she hates working here. I know she's having some personal issues, but I've become more resentful by the day that the company has put me in this position to take personal attacks and criticism (most of which are not true, and are evidenced by the other 10 evals) and that I have no way to rebutt, speak to her, or try to work this out with her. I am crushed that someone hates coming to work every day in my dept. and I am seriously considering, after 10 years of working here, changing careers. I feel the company has put me in an unfair position and I am angered by that. I feel that I can no longer work with a person such as this.