This case is reserved for use by Columbia Business School Faculty only.
What insights and tools can help executives who must engage in difficult conversations with valued employees?
What insights and tools can help executives who must engage in difficult conversations with valued employees?
Most business leaders will be confronted, over the course of their career, with a wide range of challenging situations requiring difficult conversations with colleagues and employees. This case relates the conversations that occurred in four fictitious scenarios based on real-world events: between a supervisor and direct report in a consulting firm who is not living up to expectations; a manager at a tech startup and a maverick engineer; the chairman of a publicly-traded company and a hard-working CFO who will not be promoted, and peer analysts at an investment bank with differing attitudes toward their job responsibilities. In each of these cases, students are asked to consider whether the conversation could have been more effectively handled and what actions and conversations should follow.