Career conversations are a necessary part of your direct report’s growth, but without care, these meetings can lack purpose, meaning, and impact. Are you really getting to the heart of their struggles and aspirations, or do you find yourself going through the motions, setting minimally viable targets just to be able to say you did? If you’re not having meaningful career conversations with your direct reports, you’re missing out on one of the best opportunities you have to learn what motivates them and help them set specific goals so that they can shine on and within your team.

In her book Radical Candor, Kim Scott offers a framework for career conversations where you ask your direct to tell their life story, share their dreams, and make an action plan for the future. No small feat! In this talk I’ll share stories of the framework in practice, putting the test on my diverse and distributed teams. I’ll share what went well and what didn’t, strategies for course-correcting, and how I built scaffolding to support and deepen the conversation.

You’ll learn how career conversations are not only a critical tool for your direct report, but crucial to helping your whole team grow together, and will even improve your ability to collaborate with your direct. With clear guidance, you’ll feel ready to schedule meetings that matter.