For business

Questions for leaders.

Answer these yourself rather than sending them round the team. The ones you draw a blank on are the interesting ones.

• Who on your team did their best work this year, and what was different about the conditions they were working in?
• What do you actually know about how each person works, beyond what they are good at?
• Which of your standing meetings would nobody schedule if it did not already exist?
• When someone underperforms, how long do you spend on the conditions before you conclude something about the person?
• Who has been on demanding work continuously, with no gap, for longer than you would have guessed?
• What do you decide about people based on how they show up in a room you chose, at a time you set?
• Which conditions on your team are genuinely fixed, and which ones has nobody questioned in years?
• If someone needed a condition changed to do their best work, is there a way for them to ask that does not cost them anything?

A caution worth stating. Conditions can quietly track with protected characteristics. Needing to leave by five tracks with caregiving. Preferring written communication can track with disability or with speaking English as a second language. So change the shape of the work, not the list of people you offer it to. If someone needs to leave by five, move the meeting. Do not quietly stop putting them forward for the engagement that makes careers.

Reading for this

Essays for this are grouped on the essays page, with routes for managing and for hiring.