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We have two rules in Zoho Corp:

1. To evaluate a team member's contribution fairly, every manager has to really know the person well. In other words, no "fly-by-night" form-filling performance reviews!

2. No negatives surprises during a performance review.

These two together mandate that every manager spend a great deal of time with the people who work for them and bring up any negatives on a timely basis so the team member has an opportunity to correct them rather than being inflicted a negative surprise.

So I agree on the importance of regular 1-on-1's. Having said that, I am not sure I really like the tone of Ben's conversation with his manager. First of all, I find this yes/no style insulting to an intelligent person on the other side, and second, if the managers in question were valuable to the organization (which should be the presumption here), it is odd to think the CEO would threaten to fire them so readily. I would not expect an intelligent and self-respecting person to work under those terms - I know I would not.



I (and my partner) have one rule: respect.

Everyone is treated with respect. I personally would've never "talk down" to an employee like this Ben guy did. And frankly, we expect our employees to act them same (and most do - the ones who don't don't last long here).


And the second rule is to fix typos before posting. :) Sorry all.


So if your managers are totally failing the employees they are managing... you cannot seriously correct them?

But presumably you expect the employees to take serious correction. So this really reduces to an unspoken code that management shouldn't be treated this way.


You can correct somebody respectfully. I think Ben could have had exactly the same outcome without coming across as a jerk.

I'm not judging Ben either way here; sometimes a situation requires being a jerk. But the more managing I do, the more I believe that if a manager has to be a jerk it's because they've messed something up elsewhere.




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