You have a lot of wisdom to offer your organization, but if you have nothing unique to offer about the crucial issues, it's hard to get a hearing at the executive table.

Everyone knows already about problems in the economy, sales, and staffing.

But you could make a valued contribution by identifying other issues that fly under the radar of your leaders.

Do you know unemployed people whose job applications get no attention because they look like hundreds of others?

Millions of people are competing for the same handful of jobs. They're frustrated and demoralized.

At Panoramic Feedback, we saw that 360 degree feedback assessments could make well-qualified job-seekers stand out for recruiters.

But there's a catch-22. Most people have access to feedback only if they are already employed, by an organization that uses 360s!

New individual focus

We're proud to announce that's changed.

When a rebellious child demands, "Why do I have to?" the exasperated parent replies, "Because I said so."

This is the power of position: I'm your parent; bigger, older, smarter, so do what I say.

Sometimes it's all a loving parent has to fall back on. But in the workplace, it's too often the default approach to authority.

Fortunately, HR professionals are less tempted by it, not so much because they are better people but because they have very little of it. Positional power, that is.

As the recession winds down, the casualties include a lot of dedicated HR professionals.

They've experienced the pain of letting good people go. They've watched their own colleagues disappear, and worried that they might be next.

They've encountered people they would be firing in a day or two, and longed to shout that the sky is falling.

They've endured many a hostile glare.

It hasn't gotten any better

Even at home, some find it hard to relax. Their sleep is disturbed, their appetite affected.

I had a coaching meeting this morning with a manager who is distressed about problems at work.

Afterwards I tried to distil the factors that make a coaching session effective. Here's what I concluded:

Take charge

Create a secure environment which is comfortable and private. Generally that's an office with a closed door and no distractions. Turn off the phone.

Sit facing the individual, no desk between you.

Pay attention

Let go of the important things that you've been busy with.

Over the last couple of months, our 360-degree feedback development team has been hard at work creating a questionnaire for a new product we're launching.

Along the way, we made the questionnaire too long, then too short. We added questions, and subtracted many. We requested narrative comments, then re-wrote requests that were redundant or confusing.

It took some time.

But it's been a great process, and reminded me of the 5 key principles of questionnaire development.

Helping individuals grow through 360-degree feedback is critically important in times like this, when we have to accomplish more with fewer people.

Here are 10 ways to make sure you get the most value from your 360s.

I spent last weekend with Freida, the newest member of our family. She's four months old and gorgeous.

The memory that stands out is a plump, smiling, dark-haired baby who was looking at me. Really staring, for minutes at a time.

On our previous visit her eyes moved at random, rarely settling on me or anything else.

Now she's able to really attend. My heart melted, to be the focus of attention for someone so fresh and new.

Decision-makers who have survived the recession are like surfers thrown off their boards once too often. At least, that's the view of a colleague whose insights I value.

Esther Ewing of The Change Alliance told me recently she sees the recession as eroding the confidence of decision-makers. And their caution is imposing unintended downstream risks on their organizations.

I was 12, visiting a cottage and looking for adventure, when I first met Pete the water-skier.

While my family was chugging along in a beat-up old tub, Pete was racing around the lake behind a big, fast boat.

I was thrilled when he invited me to ski with him. He even taught me to drive while he skied. We had many good times that sunny summer.

It all ended one day when I failed to check behind me during a turn. While I watched for obstacles ahead, Pete was sinking into the water.