The short answer. Yes, and it's not only a 360. A 360 asks your colleagues to rate you, which gives you data about your impact with no map for where that impact is coming from. How to Fascinate®, discovered by Sally Hogshead, works differently. It measures how the world sees you, not how you see the world, and it names the specific way your communication is most likely to be received. Paired with an internal read like the Enneagram, you get both halves... how you see yourself and how others actually receive you.

Why 360s leave people stuck

A 360 is a survey. Your boss, peers, and direct reports rate you, and you get a report back.

That's useful information. It's also a grade. And most of us were trained for years to hear a grade as a verdict on who we are. So a 360 says "hard to read" or "people are afraid to push back," and what you hear is that you're a bad leader and everyone found out.

Then you go work harder on the wrong thing, because the report told you what people experience and nothing about why.

A score is a weather report, not a verdict

A VP who runs an innovation lab at a company you've definitely heard of called me after his communication assessment came back. His innovation score was second-to-lowest on his entire team.

"How am I supposed to lead an innovation lab if I don't speak the language of innovation?"

That number wasn't telling him he wasn't innovative. It was telling him he wasn't being read as innovative, in the one specific way that assessment defines the word.

What he actually does is listen to the fifteen ideas everyone else throws on the wall, know which three are worth fighting for, and pair each one with the story that gets it past senior leadership. That's not a weak innovator. That's the person who makes everyone else's innovation survive contact with reality.

A score isn't a verdict. It's a weather report. It tells you how the room is experiencing you today. It doesn't tell you who you are.

What How to Fascinate® measures

How to Fascinate® looks at seven Advantages... Innovation, Passion, Power, Prestige, Trust, Mystique, and Alert. Your Primary and Secondary Advantages describe the way you're most likely to be perceived at your best. Your Dormant Advantage is the one people are least likely to receive from you.

It's not a rating from your colleagues. It's a map of your impact. And because it's a map, it tells you where the impact is coming from, which a 360 can't.

Why one read isn't enough

Here's what development tends to hand you. A 360 gives you impact data with no map of where it comes from. The personality work you did years ago gave you a map of your intent with nothing about how it lands.

Two halves of one equation, and nobody has put them next to each other.

Intent is how you see the world. Impact is how the world receives you. Intent + Impact = Influence. The work I do, The Translation Method™, uses the Enneagram for intent and How to Fascinate® for impact, then works the gap between the two. That gap is where leaders who've done everything right still get misread.

You don't have to change. You don't need a persona or a louder version of yourself. You need the other half of your own equation.

So... think about the last piece of feedback that stung. Was it telling you who you are? Or was it a weather report about how one room received you on one day?

Cheers to Success!

Hillarie Kay

Quick answers

What assessment measures how others perceive you?

360-degree feedback surveys collect colleagues' ratings of you. How to Fascinate®, discovered by Sally Hogshead, takes a different approach and maps how the world sees you, identifying the specific way your communication is most likely received. Many leaders use both.

What's the difference between a 360 and How to Fascinate®?

A 360 is a survey of other people's ratings, which tells you what they experience but not why. How to Fascinate® maps how you're perceived at your best through seven Advantages, which tells you where your impact comes from and how to use it.

How do I close the gap between how I see myself and how others see me?

Get a read on both halves. Use an internal tool like the Enneagram for your intent, an external one like How to Fascinate® for your impact, then work the translation between them in real situations. That's the approach behind The Translation Method™.