The Manager Who Needs to Be Liked

The appraisal meeting with Ritesh is booked for thirty minutes and takes eleven. Pradeep has the form open. He has, under the heading Areas for development, a paragraph that he drafted on Sunday night and rewrote four times, each version softer than the last, until it now reads: Ritesh could look to take greater ownership of timelines going forward.

He does not read it out. He says that it has been a solid year. He says the team values Ritesh’s positive attitude. Ritesh, who is thirty-four and has two children and a flat in Electronic City with nineteen years left on it, nods and smiles and asks whether there is anything he should be working on.