But the biggest problem is that it does not take into account the relative capacity of the respondents to the person being assessed regardless of their relative positions to one another (peer, manager, MoR, subordinate). I think relative CIP is the number one influence on evaluations. Unless you know that, the data is not being evaluated with an appropriate frame of reference.

As I’ve said before, you could have three subordinates of the same manager (A, B, C). Subordiante A rates him well, B and C rate him poorly but for opposite reasons – one says he’s a micromanager one says he’s too distant. This reflecting a subordinate appropriately spaced (A), one at the same level (B) and one (C) who is at least two levels below the manager.

To add to the confusion, if memory serves me, don’t 360′s average all the subordinates’ scores together to come up with one score? Now that’s really a mess. The only place you get any diferentiation is in the comments.

Another problem is that we all know that people whose current capability is over their role tend to do really well their first six months and then boredom sets in an performance CAN be affected. So, 360 results will likely be influenced by where the underemployed employee’s learning curve is at the moment.

Changing gears again, your comment about overestimating people below you. I don’t believe this is the case. What has been found is that when attempting to observe CIP via interview analysis, a GREEN observer will tend to overestimate those below him during his first few attempts at interview analysis. However, this is short lived and is quickly overcome by practice and coaching.

When you are doing your “assessment” via real life interactions with someone rather than via interview analysis…

In the working world and with Presidential Elections, we intuitively know when someone is above us or below us but stratifying it is beyond the general frame of reference.

We can also intuitively rank people relative to one another.

One other finding that we have observed when using a talent gearing process with managers making capacity judgments rather than using interview analysis:
When a manager (Joe) is one level below his role, Joe’s manager (MoR) will likely rate Joe’s subordinates (SoR) lower than they are.

Meaning the MoR’s impression of a SoR is influenced by middle man (manager). This reinforces Jaques’ recommendation that skip level interaction (Mor to SoR) is another requirement for Requisite Organization. My guess is that this skip level interaction would clear up this bias because the MoR would then have first hand information from which to judge the SoR.

I hope this hasn’t been to scattered. I don’t have a lot of time for editing.