General tips to get the most out of your LUMEN experience

Learners:

Receptivity: Be sure you are a motivated learner who is open to feedback.

Perspective: This tool allows you to more immediately course correct than an annual review would allow; treat the data as perspective that will grant insights on your leadership.

Data: Use your data to ascertain patterns; they will be revealed through internal coaching (where available) and disciplined examination of feedback.

Relationships: Consider LUMEN as a vehicle to strengthen and enhance relationships from key stakeholders.

Subordinates: Be sure to ease power dynamics of a direct report rating you. This means you need to recognize (aloud) the fact that your direct report is taking a risk serving as your rater. Remember, the feedback is not anonymous. It can be helpful to offer concrete examples where you felt like you could have more effectively addressed your development goal, as well as an example displaying a moment where you were closer to approximating the ideal set of behaviors.

Picking your raters: Look at the goal and think about who would have the best insight on your progress. The rater should know you for a minimum of 4-6 months. Make sure you select raters who you trust and who you believe can be objective.

Clarify what you need: Be sure that each rater is clear about your goal, why you are working on it and what exactly you want him/her to be looking for. This may be another place to provide examples either of you in action (favorable and unfavorable) or even of another person who has mastery of an area upon which you are working.

Raters:

Clarity: Make sure you understand specifically what the learner wants you to rate. Be sure to ask about both constructive “do different” behaviors as well as positive “keep doing” behaviors.

Rating frequency: Commit to rating your colleague on a regular basis. This helps the learner become accustomed to continuous feedback. Use LUMEN’s “alert” feature so the system will prompt you for regular feedback.

Event ratings: Try to remember to provide feedback outside of your regular cadence. This is particularly critical when your colleague has done something spectacular. Give the learner a rating and a note to provide positive feedback and tell him/her to keep doing it.

Immediacy: Be sure to provide feedback as close to when it happened as possible so that it is crisp in your mind.

Rating hints: Try not to get stuck on giving an absolute number; focus instead on directionality. For example, an 8 is directionally positive while a 4 or 5 signals a “continuous improvement” opportunity.

Observation hints: If you’re in a hurry leave a cue word so that you can recall details when you talk with the learner. Be very clear about “keep doing” feedback as this is encouraging and specificity allows the learner to repeat the ideal behavior(s). Use non-evaluative language. For example, “Your body language in the meeting could be perceived as defensive or tuning out” vs. “You were defensive in the meeting.”