SOCIAL FITNESS AND 360 DEGREE APPRAISALS

1. Three incidents in the recent past although geographically separated and prima facie disconnected must ring an alarm bell as loud as that from the Tower of London. First, the Young Officer going missing from Infantry School Mhow, second, the ugly fracas in an RR Unit and finally the news of the Indian Navy implementing 360 degree appraisals. If one connects the dots what emerges is a new parameter of health; social. Physical and mental health is par for the course and have been part of the training curricula and military routine since time immemorial but this new challenge has taken everyone by surprise, the psychomotor response to a novel conundrum is ostrich head in the sand and the classic Bollywood response from Three Idiots, Alllll izzz well, allll izzz well. The brutal fact is contrary, all is surely not well, and putting our heads in the sand is not going to make this problem disappear.

2. The first step in a military process would be to establish the taxonomy of this new phraseology, social fitness. Social fitness is defined as the ability to engage in productive personal and professional relationships, positively interact with unit and command networks, and use resources that promote overall well-being[1]. Social fitness is like any other area; the more you practice or exercise it, the stronger your relationships will be. Social fitness, however, is inherently a multilevel construct, revealed by the capacities of individuals and the armed forces as an organization to foster and sustain positive social relationships and to endure and recover from professional and societal stressors and social isolation. This very social relationship is under the scanner where in the real world has been usurped by virtual world and friends have been overtaken by social media acquaintances.

3. Positive social connections, when established, can provide important social resources that alter the way individuals experience and respond to stressful events or circumstances. Military personnel face several unique challenges that can strain the strength and accessibility of these social resources. Social fitness is the resource a person gets from his or her social world. This concept encompasses the availability and maintenance of social relationships, and the ability to utilize those ties to manage stressors and successfully perform tasks. Social fitness resources are the aspects of those relationships that strengthen a person’s ability to withstand and rebound from challenges (e.g., stress, threat, or disaster) or even grow from them. The key resilience factor associated with social fitness is a support system. Social support for military personnel includes family and comrades at arms within the unit, now the latest phenomenon is cyber communities (whatsapp groups) and imagined communities (groups with which a person identifies and to which he or she feels a sense of belonging even if he or she has never met others in the group). Social support can be either actual or perceived and often perceived support is more influential on mental health than actual support. The feeling that if you are in trouble and there is a coursemate around, you can bank on him even if you have not spoken to him since passing out from training academy. The inability to socially establish a human relationship within the sub-unit is the major reason for such incidents of desertion and worse still fratricide.

4. British anthropologist Robin Dunbar calls 150 as the “magic number” Dunbar’s study reveals that the size, relative to the body, of the neocortex — the part of the brain associated with cognition and language — is linked to the size of a cohesive social group. This ratio limits how much complexity a social system can handle.[2] The size of a rifle company is therefore kept close to Dunbar Number and has been so since the time of Sparta, who used a 144-man basic formation, the Roman “Century” was 60–80 men but these were normally combined into pairs (120–160 man Maniples) in action[3]. Today the challenge is that this 150 is not able to maintain cohesion and the leader of this group of 150 soldiers is ill-equipped or over-burdened to develop this bond. As a recourse, the group meanders into social media where help is a mirage and may not be timely. Our inability to form this cohesive bond both vertically and horizontally needs to be tackled. Task cohesion and social cohesion are both forms of horizontal cohesion, which refers to cohesion at the primary group level; generally, the section or platoon and perhaps the company, rather than at the level of larger units, such as the brigade, battalion, or service. In contrast, vertical cohesion refers to downward or upward cohesion involving leaders and followers.

5. Lack of cohesion between the leader and the led makes the leader squirm at the idea of a 360 degree appraisal. This appraisal is also known as multi-source feed­back and multi-rater feed­back which dates to the 1950s and quickly became popular. By the 1990s, most organizations were making use of the tool. The challenge in the Indian Armed Forces is how 360 feedback is used — specifically, whether it should be used for developmental purposes, for evaluation purposes, or both. Research on 360 feedback programs suggests that most companies that implement 360s use them for development-related purposes, such as training, annual development goals, and succession planning. Few use 360 results solely for evaluation purposes that affect HR policy decisions, such as promotions. 360s appraisal must be more targeted at senior leadership or toward high-potential officers as part of the military education system. The services must value good leadership behaviour and tools that can help develop good leaders. 360 appraisal is one tool that has value in developing leaders, however, it is not a silver bullet. Experts in the field of personnel research agree and caution that overzealous use of 360s without careful attention to content, design, and delivery can be harmful to an organization and not worth the time and money spent on them. Thus, mandating 360 assessments in Indian Army, even for development purposes, is not necessarily the right answer to solving leadership problems leave aside evaluation and could waste significant resources.

6. Modern day leader emerges as one who is adept in four dimensions of leadership: own, leader, peer and led. The own dimension emphasizes self-awareness. Without management of oneself, no one is fit for authority. In the vertical dimension, leader, a 21st-century leader has the consent and support of the led allowing the leader to follow his or her convictions and execute his orders with utter disregard to personal safety. In the horizontal dimension, peers, the 21st-century leader understands that little or nothing can be accomplished without the support, respect, and confidence of peers. Lastly, the 21st-century leader recognizes that his or her legacy is how well he follows his leader. A successful leader inspires in the people who have authority over him and gives him the freedom to execute his vision in the previous three dimensions of good leadership. This effect cascades throughout the organization. In general, the primary advantages of 360 degree feedback are twofold: first, it offers the individual a clearer picture of self for personal growth and leadership development; and second, it offers the organization a clearer picture of who are its best performers.

7. 360 degree feedback alters the culture of an organization. It is empowering as traditional feedback (boss-only) encourages the ratee’s allegiance in only one dimension, 3600 feedback, with its multi-dimensional nature, has built-in team principles. It alleviates the deficiencies of traditional feedback mechanisms and engenders a cultural change that encourages teamwork. This feedback reinforces and is more congruent with organizational values that espouse teamwork and other related principles. As a feedback mechanism, 360 degree feedback’s goal is to help bring about a change in the ratee’s behaviour. Research has shown that, in order to achieve the desired behavioural change, the individual must be held accountable for changing. In other words, whether the purpose of the system is developmental or administrative, an accountability mechanism, such as an Individual Development Plan (IDP), must be included and periodically reviewed with a supervisor or third party to ensure progress. There is considerable debate among practitioners and academics as to whether 360 degree feedbacks should be for development and/or administrative use. 360 degree feedback becomes an important leadership development tool that enables leaders to enact their new leadership roles. Hence, such comprehensive feedback allows people whose work is interdependent to make sense of the work they do. People can see the relevance of their work to the organization and its mission, while the organization benefits from enhanced leadership development and increased clarity in identifying its top performers and ensure social fitness within the organization.

[1] https://www.health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Total-Force-Fitness/Social Fitness#:~:text=Social%20Fitness%20is%20the%20ability, stronger%20your%20relationships%20will%20be. Accessed on 15 Oct 23.

[2] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191001-dunbars-number-why-we-can-only-maintain-150-relationships accessed on 15 Oct 23.

[3] https://www.theagileelephant.com/dunbars-numbers-and-organising-for-social-business/ accessed on 15 Oct 23.