Improve Your Regular Management Conversations: The Power of High-Structure, High-Substance Communication

When managers build and maintain a high-quality, one-on-one dialogue with their direct reports, they almost always increase employee performance and morale, increase retention of high performers and turnover among low performers, and achieve significant measurable iprovements in business outcomes.

And here’s the really good news: They spend less time firefighting. They get ahead of the problems and prevent the fires. They break the vicious cycle. They start getting their management time back. Then, if they don’t slip up on the fundamentals, a virtuous upward spiral begins to build. Having those regular one-on-one conversations with your direct reports is your fire prevention, preparation, and training. That’s where real impact occurs. Not in the crucial conversations, but rather in the routine conversations.

But first, you have to make the quality of those routine conversations much, much better. The key is high-substance, high-structure communication.

What is…