As is the story with every new innovation, the evolution of the idea of a well-rounded and all-inclusive feedback survey, came to Dr. Rao through 4 major events in his career as a researcher.
- In 1969, Dr. Rao along with his colleagues conducted an Indian Council of Medical Research project in Delhi with school teachers. It was titled as ‘Motivational training for mental health’ and studied the relationship between the teaching methods of the teachers and the performance of the student. Here, he saw the change that simple feedback brought about in the teachers and began to explore that as a field.
- In 1973, when he joined IIM, he began a course for entrepreneurial motivation, where he would ask the students to fill out FIRO-B questionnaires and would give them feedback based on their answers. The profile of students that was drawn up was further analyzed and allowed many of the participants to improve and develop in those fields.
- In 1975, while giving a talk he was approached by a professor at Harvard to help adapt a scale that was being created, called the psychosocial maturity scale, to suit the Indian context and population.
- In 1974, he began to conduct T-Group training that would allow the participants to interact with complete strangers and get feedback that would not be biased as he believed that strangers had the ability to be more straightforward than colleagues you worked with.
In the following video, Dr. Rao gives further insight to the experiences that have led to the 4 crucial parts of his decision to develop what later came to be known as 360 degree feedback assessment.
