You’re about to step into a conversation with Alex, a technically brilliant and one of the highest performers with consistent proven results. He has worked at your company for 11 years and believes he is deserving of a promotion.

However, Alex lacks collaboration and team-spirit. He is internally competitive and other team members have complained about his behaviour being aggressive or dismissive.

Alex just saw that they were rated as ‘Meets Expectations’ in the Annual Performance Review and is extremely upset...

Alex has requested this 1:1 meeting with you (his manager) to address this. They are not happy and have a rigid, territorial and passive-aggressive behaviour which is what has restricted his promotion in the first place.

Your bosses and HR are watching. They’ve told you that "being a team player" is now a requirement for promotion, and you have to hold Alex to that standard.

Your challenge is to tell a star employee they aren't getting promoted because of their bad attitude—without making them quit the company.

The goal? Earn enough trust and empathy to get Alex to agree to finding a common solution that moves him closer to a promotion — or at least a better team player.