These six tactics create productive conflict with a focus on issues, not personalities.

Few organizations provide strong guidance or training for managers on meeting individually with their employees, but the author’s research shows that managers who don’t hold these meetings frequently enough or who manage them poorly risk leaving their team members disconnected, both functionally and emotionally. When the meetings are done well, they can make a team’s day-to-day activities more efficient and better, build trust and psychological safety, and improve employees’ experience, motivation, and engagement at work. The author has found that although there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to one-on-ones, they are most successful when the meeting is dominated by topics of importance to the direct report rather than issues that are top of mind for the manager. Managers should focus on making sure the meetings take place, creating space for genuine conversation, asking good questions, offering support, and helping team members get what they need to thrive in both their short-term performance and their long-term growth.

One-on-one meetings with direct reports are high leverage opportunites to impact your team's performance. Make sure you're getting the most out of them.

We’ve all been there— you spend an exorbitant number of hours on a proposal or presentation for work— revising, reworking, crossing every T and dotting every I. You walk into the meeting, maybe you’ve listened to your favorite song to pump you up (Lizzo? Queen?), completed your requisite power pose

In recent years leading executives—from firms like Google, Bridgewater, and Netflix—have touted the advantages of a work environment marked by candid feedback. Employees seem to have bought into the benefits too. In a 2019 survey, 94% said that corrective feedback improved their performance when it was presented well. Unfortunately, the increased diversity of our workplaces has made it much more likely that feedback won’t go over well and will be misinterpreted as an act of hostility. That’s because people from different cultures, genders, and generations have varying expectations for how feedback is delivered and by whom. What’s standard in America, for instance, can come off as harsh or baffling in other countries. Boomers and Millennials hold radically different ideas about what’s appropriate too. And gender differences add to the complexity. Women who are frank are often seen as aggressive, and men have a bad tendency to offer unwelcome advice. This article explains how to navigate the divides: Understand the norms of feedback recipients and adjust for them. Follow the three A’s—make sure any advice is intended to assist, actionable, and asked for. Last, get everyone on your team on the same page by establishing a common approach and building regular feedback loops into your collaborations.