Elva Ainsworth was born into a family of people watchers and has cultivated a real love of people-pattern spotting. This combination led her to a career in HR after a psychology degree at Bristol University. In HR she enjoyed implementing the brand new psychometrics as well as designing culture change and personal development tools. In 1994 she focused on her love of psychometrics by joining SHL (now CEB), the leading business psychologists, where she managed the 360 degree feedback and management development practice in both the UK and the USA. Qualifying in homeopathy was combined with her OD perspective to feed a strong appetite for a new approach to giving feedback. Having experienced therapeutic processes that enabled easy paradigm shifts, Elva was sure there was a new way. She looked to guarantee “light-bulb” moments while supporting people through and out of the emotional upsets that often arise from 360 degree feedback. She was on a mission! Her hypothesis was that “personalisation” of 360 degree feedback surveys would make a difference by encouraging ownership of the development process and also that privacy would give sufficient safety for real learning to occur. The result of her application and experience is this book.
