🚩Tactical Memo 114: Fair Is Not The Same For Everyone
I ran the identical one-on-one with all 6 people. Only 1 of them needed it that way.
Justin Bateh
November 10, 2026
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Tactical Memo #114 | Navigating Modern Work · Management | 6 min read
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In brief The situation: You run the identical one-on-one with every person on your team. The mistake: Most managers treat identical as fair and stop thinking about it. The move: Set direction, autonomy, and feedback per person, and say why out loud. |
The story
You run the same 30-minute check-in with EVERY person who reports to you.
Same 3 questions, same cadence, same template.
I ran mine that way for years as a COO, and I was proud of it. The manager before me had favorites, and I was not going to be that.
Then I watched my strongest person start answering in short sentences and leaving 10 minutes early.
The one who was struggling kept telling me everything was fine.
Nobody complained once.
What I had built was 1 meeting for 6 different people. My best person was being watched when she wanted room. The one in trouble was being left alone when he wanted direction.
6 people. 1 setting.
It took me a long time to admit what sameness actually was. It was me not having looked closely enough to tell my own people apart, and a team can feel the difference between a manager who chose and a manager who defaulted.
If every person you manage gets the same meeting on the same schedule, you are where I was.
Treating everyone the same reads as not paying attention. Here's how to work with it.
The moves
1/ Write the 3 settings next to every name
What I use now is a list of names with 3 words next to each one.
Direction is how much of the what and the how I specify.
Autonomy is how much room someone gets before I check in.
Feedback is how often it arrives and how blunt it is.
Each one sits at tight, medium, or loose. Open your list of reports and write all 3 next to each name.
Written down, the settings show you which ones you actually chose and which ones you inherited.
The first time I did this, 4 of my 6 were on the identical 3 words.
Checklist Direction. Tight, medium, or loose. Autonomy. Tight, medium, or loose. Feedback. Tight, medium, or loose. |
2/ Set direction by the work, not the title
I set direction against the work in front of someone, NEVER against the line on the org chart.
A senior person handed unfamiliar work needs tight direction for the first month.
A junior person running the task for the 40th time does not.
(I used to set it by seniority and call it respect. What it did was drop my most experienced people into new work with nothing.)
The same person can need 2 different direction settings in the same week.
3/ Set autonomy by what a mistake costs
Before I decide how much room to give, I price the wrong version.
If a bad first pass costs an afternoon, I go loose. If a client or an executive sees it unreviewed, I go tight.
Most of the work is cheap.
Give room wherever a mistake is recoverable, and you get your week back along with their judgment.
I ask myself 1 question before I set this one.
Ask this "If this comes out wrong, what does it cost us, and who sees it before I do?" |
4/ Set feedback by how fast it gets used
Some people take a correction and have it applied by the end of the day. I give them more of it, sooner, and blunter.
Others need 1 correction at a time and a day to work with it. I give them the same content in smaller pieces.
What I am adjusting is the volume and the pace. The honesty never moves.
Feedback someone can act on today should reach them today.
5/ Find the person whose settings you have never changed
Go back to your list and look for the name where nothing has moved in 2 years.
It is usually the reliable one who delivers on time and escalates nothing.
The people I got most wrong as a manager were never the loud ones. They were the ones who never forced me to pick a setting.
They noticed before I did.
The steady person who never asks for anything is the one most likely to be getting no management at all.
6/ Say the setting out loud
Your team already knows you check one person's work more than another's. They compare.
What they do not know is why, and a gap that size gets filled with the worst available explanation.
So I name the setting, the reason, and what would change it. I say it OUT LOUD, to the person, in plain words.
Once you say the setting and the reason, it stops reading as a verdict on the person.
This is close to what I say, word for word.
Say this "I'm staying close on this one because the scope is new to you, not because I'm worried about your work. After the first milestone lands, I back off and you run it." |
7/ Keep the standard identical while the settings differ
This is the line I will not cross, and it keeps different from turning into unfair.
Same quality bar for all 6 people. Same honest read when a result misses.
What changes is how much help, room, and correction a person gets on the way there.
I vary the support and I hold the standard.
Lower the bar for someone and everyone around them learns what you really think of them.
8/ Ask each person which setting is wrong
I do not have to guess at any of this, and I stopped trying.
I put 2 questions in the next one-on-one and then I stop talking.
You will be wrong about at least 1 person on your team.
The person doing the work knows which setting is wrong long before you do.
Ask this "What do you want more of from me, and what do you want less of?" |
9/ Reset the settings when the work changes
New scope, a promotion, a bad quarter, a stakeholder who burned them.
Each of those changes the right answer, and nobody is going to tell you the old setting has gone stale.
I put 20 minutes on my calendar every quarter and go name by name down the list.
A setting you picked a year ago is a setting you are no longer choosing.
The outcome
| Most people | You |
|---|---|
| Run the identical one-on-one with everyone | Set direction, autonomy, and feedback per person |
| Set direction by how senior someone is | Set direction by how new the work is |
| Adjust nothing for the quiet, reliable one | Check the name whose settings never moved |
| Let the team guess why you manage people differently | Say the setting and the reason out loud |
| Pick an approach at hire and leave it there | Reset the settings every quarter |
Proof. Gallup found that 67% of employees who strongly agree their manager focuses on their strengths are engaged at work. Among those who strongly disagree, engagement falls to 2%. Gallup
This week
Fair is not the same thing as identical.
The managers I trust can tell you, person by person, where each of the 3 settings sits and what put it there.
Try it next time you open your list of reports. Pick 1 name, write the 3 settings beside it, and tell that person what you wrote.
The person you manage exactly like everyone else is the person you have stopped looking at.
Reply
Which person on your team has been on the same settings the longest? Reply with their role. I read every one.
Until next time.
Justin Bateh, PhD
CEO @ AI Operators Lab
Founder & Editor, Tactical Memo