M R Singh, general manager, organisation & personnel, Usha International, explains what 360-degree feedback is all about. ``It's a worldwide concept, where you're a person in the centre and people around you -- your boss, peers, subordinates -- know what your performance has been,'' he says.

At Usha, the process has taken off with divisional managers rating general managers of other departments. Although there have been some disagreements over the assessment, GMs feel the rating is valid to a large extent. More so because the biases were weeded out. Singh elaborates: ``In a 1-5 scale, extreme ratings by a few people are considered biases.'' That is, if a general manager israted at 4 by 20 subordinates, and is given 1 by two people, the latter view is likely to be biased and, therefore, removed from the scheme of things.

The second stage of the assessment, which is yet to begin, will set in motion the rating of GMs by subordinates of the same department. As it could be quite a scary venture for the subordinates, the feedback questionnaire promises ``complete confidentiality''. Also, there's no need to write names.Adds Singh: ``Some people even write with their left hands to hide their identity.''

According to the evaluation guidelines, the evaluator writes 5 if he strongly and positively feels that the inputs/guidance/competence level provided completely fulfills his expectations; 4 if his expectations are being generally fulfilled; 3 if he's somewhat satisfied regarding the inputs/guidance/competence level being provided; 2 if he is not generally satisfied regarding the inputs/guidance/competence level, and 1 if he is totally dissatisfied regarding the inputs/guidance andcompetence level being provided by the person he is evaluating.

The evaluation/feedback parameters include sound marketing policies; solutions provided to local problems/market situation; usefulness of HO product heads' visit to divisions in terms of sales management help, training of personnel; motivating personnel; spot solutions and overall guidance; usefulness of divisional monitor; departmental heads' level of knowledge, skills, attitude, behaviour and competence for the job; rating of departmental heads on matters relating to helpfulness to division, responsiveness for action and speed of communication, etc.

But how can one be sure that such an exercise is useful to the company? ``We will do a follow-up because the system has to be validated as being reliable,'' says Singh. As a test case, the same set of people will be evaluated again after a few months. That will give the company a fair idea as to whether the evaluation is useful or not. If the performance of the people assessed goes up, theprocess is useful; otherwise there are still loopholes in it, says Singh.

The idea is to keep repeating the exercise every six months in order to see if GMs and product heads take the rating seriously or not. Soon, dealers' feedback will also included in the 360-degree assessment, adds Singh.But Usha is not the first company to use the 360-degree evaluation concept. In fact, a chance encounter with an Internet site of a company using this concept is what made it happen in Usha. General Electric (GE), Reebok, HP and Nestle are among the companies using the concept worldwide. In India, Eicher and Xerox are two prominent companies practising 360-degree evaluation.

While Singh agrees that many modern-day management techniques are a fad, he points out that the 360-degree evaluation does make a lot of sense. While using the concept, however, one has to be careful about two factors: confidentiality and biases, says Singh.

Confidentiality is the foremost requirement for a fair assessment of a person'scapabilities. Similarly, there has to be an attempt to keep clear of biases, by removing any extreme assessments. An unconventional evaluation practice such as this one fits quite well with the other organisational norms at Usha. Take, for example, its recruitment policy. Singh says: ``It's the attitude of a person that is more important than his/her academic brilliance.'' The key word here is ``fit''. The new person should fit the job and the work environment. Of course, academic attainments and extra-curricular activities have an important role to play at the time of recruitment, but a ``fit'' to the corporate culture of Usha is a must. The company has started using psychometric testing techniques such as MBT1, AH-5 (general intelligence tests) and other tests to provide additional inputs for selling skills.