Designing 360° feedback processes with PERMA-Lead
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Living organizations benefit from positive leadership that helps their teams and organizations succeed
As a certified PERMA Lead consultant, I am always particularly pleased to support people in introducing positive leadership into their organizations. Effective feedback processes are like oxygen for the vitality of organizations. Agile organizations in particular need cooperative leadership and sustainable relationships within their team structures.
However, many teams and managers shy away from feedback, especially when they believe they have to convey or receive “unpleasant messages.” Deficit-oriented evaluation standards often contribute to feedback discussions in many institutions and companies missing their mark, being avoided, or even feared.
PERMA Lead’s 360° feedback offers a profound and effective tool for sharpening the clarity and awareness of managers and employees in an appreciative way and focusing on what is essential.
I recently had the opportunity to accompany this process as a coach for a long-standing client. I would be happy to discuss the possible areas of application for this approach—with and without a 360° survey—in a personal meeting and provide contacts to my reference clients in this area.
1st Referendum of Living Beings
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Brechtbühne Augsburg
In March 2025, I had the great pleasure of accompanying and moderating a very special event: the 1st Referendum of Living Beings. In this theater event, approximately 150 theatergoers at the Brecht Festival, representing aquatic life, debated and decided on difficult questions concerning the sustainable protection of the “World Heritage Water City of Augsburg” in interaction with the initiators of the referendum (artist collective Club Real/species ambassadors of Organism Democracy). Decisions were made on the urgency of four proposals prepared by species ambassadors on the future of the World Heritage Site and the city of Augsburg.
It was a creative challenge to interactively involve 150 theatergoers in this experiment. This made the successful, moving change of perspective and the passionate, tongue-in-cheek debate all the more enjoyable. In the end, everyone had the opportunity to decide, on behalf of “their” aquatic creature, whether and how to continue on the path to a just multispecies society in Augsburg. It was an action-learning experience that will surely move and remain in the memories of all those involved for a long time to come. Never before have I experienced such an engaged and at the same time humorous, light-hearted, and profound debate about conflicts of interest and discrimination in a group of strangers.
Starting in March 2025, the species ambassadors in Augsburg will be dedicated to implementing the decisions of the referendum of living beings in cooperation with the city council in Augsburg.
“Shaping dialogue processes – promoting participation”
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Digital capacity-building workshops for international members of the German network of the Anna Lindh Foundation
At the turn of the year, I had the wonderful task of designing digital capacity-building workshops for international members of the German network of the Anna Lindh Foundation. The aim was to provide inspiration for the design of analog and digital dialogue processes in various civil society contexts.
Both the basic framework conditions for successful dialogue, such as Bohm’s basic principles, and various methodological approaches to participatory dialogue process design were presented and made tangible through practical experience. Using case studies from the participants’ own practice, the application and adaptation possibilities of various formats were explored in depth and designed using examples.
I would like to thank the participants from Hungary, Albania, Cyprus, Greece, Austria, and Germany for their stimulating collaboration and exciting perspectives on their work.
Shaping transformation with participatory dialogue formats
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As the most important representative body for visual artists, with over 3,000 members, the Berufsverband Bildender Künstler Berlin (bbk) is one of the institutions whose influence extends beyond the borders of Berlin.
Participatory orientation and transparency are core values of the association’s statutes. It was therefore a great honor for me to accompany this association as a consultant for organizational development processes during the transformation of the organization in the context of a generational change in management.
One of the particular highlights of the process was certainly the bbk Future Conference in the project room at ExRotaprint, to which all employees of the bbk and its subsidiaries Kulturwerk and Bildungswerk were invited. Here, it became clear once again how much motivation and power large group dialogues can generate for transparent transformation. I would like to thank the chairwomen of the board, Frauke Boggasch and Birgit Cauer, and the bbk’s general manager, Wibke Behrens, for their excellent cooperation, which made this long and profound development process possible.
Strong networks through vibrant organizations
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Designing sustainable participatory development processes
At the end of the two intensive days of the network meeting I had the opportunity to give a keynote speech to introduce the network partners to further working methods with which they can successfully flourish their network work, among other things through the so-called “PERMA” principles.
The organizers can look back with pride on the new engagement platform and its participatory, agile, and iterative development history. With around 15,000 entries, the engagement platform is the largest platform for engagement and volunteering in Germany. Around 90 volunteer agencies are network partners on the platform, showcasing their diverse engagement opportunities.
Dragon Dreaming
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Methods for self-organized collaborative teams at eye level
Interest in ways to foster self-organized participatory organizations and teams has led to increased response and demand for “Dragon Dreaming” in recent years. No wonder, as this methodological approach has a lot to offer where people want to make a difference in the world together with as few hierarchies as possible and as much community as possible.
I also value the work with “Dragon Dreaming” as a method and mindset in my consulting work of promoting Living Organization.
Now there is the long overdue practical book. The “Dragon Dreaming Playbook” by Ilona Koglin and Julia Kommerell shows in great graphics and concise compilation how the playful yet efficient methods work. With numerous step-by-step instructions, best practices and helpful tools and trenchant summaries, the book explains how teams can playfully and successfully implement projects in four phases.
I would like to thank Ilona Koglin very much for her request, as one of thirty practitioners from all over the world, to contribute a small methodological impulse from my practice to this great book, and – of all things – to write a journalling for the chapter “Celebrating”. The request could not have been more appropriate. Those who know me know that in Dragon Dreaming I particularly value the approach of understanding the fourth phase of reflection as “celebration” and using appropriate interventions and rituals to promote feedback culture, learning and identification in teams. Reflection must and may be fun if it is to find a place in the tightly scheduled daily work routine, in good times as well as in difficult ones.
I am happy to offer my methodological expertise. In the book you can also learn more about how organizations can foster collective intelligence, co-creative leadership skills, emancipation and equality, creativity, intuition and the playful joy of shared responsibility with Dragon Dreaming, and shape new, resilient and collaborative ways of working – whether as an agile company or start-up, educational institution, civic initiative, social movement, association, cooperative or cultural institution.
Future Workshop: School Life after Corona
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Networking and impulse event for the co-creative design of an inclusive learning and working environment in schools
Corona has changed a lot and brought with it very special burdens, especially for school life.
The district of Heinsberg took this as an opportunity to invite pupils, teachers, school administrators, school psychologists and social workers from the district’s schools to a joint dialogue at eye level in Erkelenz on 14 March. In addition to all the impositions that this difficult time has demanded of many, the aim of this event was above all to recognise needs and potentials for shaping schools in the future: Were there also valuable experiences, experiences from the Corona time? What did we learn about ourselves and others? And what possibilities and opportunities can we make fruitful for future school development – with and without Corona – and how? I had the pleasure of co-designing this all-day interactive dialogue event with the group “Back to life” (an initiative of committed school psychologists and school social workers from the Heinsberg district). In the run-up to the planning, we had hoped to be able to hold the event in happier times. However, having already been postponed once, the sad events of the Ukraine war and the continuing high Corona numbers make it clear how urgent and important it is to draw our lessons from times of crisis in order to shape a more liveable, crisis-proof future.
Positive Leadership for Vibrant Organisations
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Designing processes with PERMA-Lead 360°Feedback
Functioning feedback processes perform like oxygen on the vitality of organisations. Agile organisations in particular need cooperative leadership and sustainable team structures. Yet many teams and leaders shy away from feedback, especially if they think they have to convey or receive “difficult messages”. Deficit-oriented evaluation standards often contribute to the fact that feedback conversations and 360° feedback processes are missed, avoided or even feared in the practice of many institutions and companies. The Positive Leadership approach shows evidence-based ways to increase satisfaction, motivation and thus productivity of teams with the appreciative principles of PERMA Lead.We want to get to the bottom of the beliefs of good leadership:
- Why is leadership via “Facts, Force, Fear” a discontinued model, even though it is still part of the sad practice in many organisations?
- Is it not the task of leadership to clearly address problems and to say what is not going well?
- Doesn’t positive leadership run the risk of fostering an atmosphere of harmony sauce, where nothing critical is allowed to be addressed and every failure is dressed up as a success?
- And how can 360° feedback contribute to making it more difficult for narcissists to rise in organisations?
I would be happy to give a short introduction to working with Positive Leadership and share practical experiences with the PERMA-Lead model: How can the principles of Positive Leadership be made tangible? How can behavioural changes in the sense of Positive Leadership be promoted and measured with the PERMA-Lead Model? What added value can tools such as the PERMA-Lead Profiler and the PERMA-Lead 360° Feedback bring? And where are the limits of this approach?
School without racism - school with courage
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Workshop "Democracy is more than a method"
Discussion Paper Progressive Center
Especially in times of crisis, it becomes clear how much pressure there is on people in politics and administration to take responsibility for difficult decisions. In such situations, organizations often tend to consult experts. But complex tasks cannot be solved by the expertise of individuals alone. Participatory dialog formats offer a variety of ways to design agile processes that integrate not only expertise but also the experiences and perspectives of those affected. This not only enhances the quality of decisions, but also promotes identification and sustainability in the implementation of decisions. In the discussion paper “Democracy is more than a method – competence development for more democracy in everyday work” for the Progressive Center, I took a closer look at what competence development is needed to be able to shape these processes.
Let me know if you are interested in the English version of the article.
Team development with double sustainable benefits
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Strengthen the resilience of your team and our ecosystem in equal measure
In cooperation with zukunftsfähig e.V., I offer you a team action that has an even more lasting effect than mere reflection and talking about ourselves and is therefore doubly meaningful: We plant trees as a team action and let ourselves get inspired by the holistic design principles of permaculture for the development process as a team. Team spirit is created when everyone is united behind a common task. By planting trees together, we create something that will stay and flourish, as a significant contribution to our ecosystem and as a unifying, insightful experience for the common everyday work: corridor enrichment in the literal sense of the word. Action and accompanying dialogue remain in a healthy relationship, because the green thumb replaces the moral index finger. Holistic thinking, planning and acting strengthens the resilience of your team and organization. Strengthen your community and ecosystem!