Harvard Business Review

Confronting direct reports about performance issues can feel overwhelming, especially for first-time managers, who may worry that sharing critical feedback could damage their relationship with the employee. But performance conversations, especially where you need to give critical feedback, don’t have to be scary. There are a few common mistakes to avoid when giving critical feedback. One of the biggest mistakes is avoiding the conversation or waiting too long to have it. Many new managers also fail to properly prepare before their performance discussions. If there are tasks, projects, or skills at which your employee is falling short, you should also be able to give them a clear explanation of why or where they haven’t met your expectations. Some also end up making the issue about the person instead of focusing on the work itself. Being a great people manager is not about being a friend or being liked by everyone all the time — it’s about being a manager who cares about their employees and helps them get their job done.

Since the 1960s, there has been a quest to find ways to address the tidal wave of paper deluging organizations. The latest technology that is being applied is AI. A case study — an effort at a healthcare insurer — provides five lessons not just applicable in projects aimed at reducing paper but also for other AI initiatives as well: 1) The goal should not be automation; it should be to get the work done in a cost-effective manner. 2) A successful application of AI may not mean lower employment. 3) AI can allow employees to focus on higher-value work. 4) The savings come from increases in scale made possible by higher productivity and quality. 5) Involving employees who have been performing the function in the AI project is essential.

A conversation with psychologist Ellen Hendriksen on being your own worst critic.

Making your AI tools look human or dehumanizing them altogether are not the best ways to win over your users. Instead, show them the human effort and expertise that go into their development and design. The path forward is highlighting the humans in AI rather than humanizing AI. The good news: the reality for today’s AI systems is that they are fundamentally products of human work. From architectural decisions about model design to the curation of training data; reinforcement learning feedback to fine-tuning response behaviors; and prompt engineering to application development — humans shape these systems at every level. When users interact with AI, they are engaging with tools molded by countless human decisions and decisions. Anthropomorphizing practices, however, misrepresent reality as they entail portraying AI as human. The authors’ research shows that emphasizing this simple fact — the essential role of humans in AI tools — can boost perceptions of AI’s usefulness and reduce resistance to adoption.

HBS senior lecturer Hise Gibson discusses Coach Prime’s effectiveness.

“We're going to run them out of business and buy that building, which we're going to bulldoze. After that, we'll salt the earth.

New research finds that employers overestimate how informed employees feel when they agree to policies, contracts, and even extra tasks at work. This miscalculation can have direct costs for organizations in terms of employee

As AI is infiltrating every aspect of how we live and work, it increasingly looks or sounds like us.

As they prepare for the coming years’ likely trade battles, company leaders — particularly CEOs and boards — need to recognize that uncertainty and volatility won’t be short-term things; they’re becoming features of the global trade system. To thrive in this kind of environment, leaders need to be opportunistic and strategic at the same time: quick to see a threat or seize on an opening, but also long-term smart about industry trends and competitive dynamics. It’s not easy, but the alternative is to be stuck a step behind. Leadership teams need to craft a five-part response, which includes three immediate actions and two longer-term initiatives.

How can you tell if you're on your company's leadership fast track?