Here's a word of advice for managers who have ever had an unpleasant meeting with a key employee and cannot fathom why Give-and-Take turned into Tug-of-War.

Get out your employee manual and look under troubleshooting for Failure to Communicate.

Oh, wait. The human resources department is still working on that part of the employee manual.

All right, that's a fantasy. No instructions exist for this problem because people are not machines. They are a complex recipe of nature and nurture, past experience, current needs and desires, and a number of other foreign ingredients that a manager might not even recognize. To complicate matters more, you as the manager need to know how you are alike and how you differ in ways small or large from those you supervise.

Being alike or different from those who work for you is neither good nor bad. It's just life. But unrecognized or ignored, differences and even similarities can create serious problems for the company, for supervisors, and for those they direct. The results can be disastrous: too little change, too much conflict, reduced productivity, high turnover.

The conundrum is how to manage smoothly no matter how different or similar you are to your employees - effecting the changes the organization needs without clenched teeth, raised voices, sharply closed doors and the echo of stomping footsteps. Must we deal with daily frustration and communicate through formal memos or tense face-to-face meetings?

No. Other ways exist to deal with the problem. Unique new assessments that reveal the characteristics of managers and people who work for them can give us personalized answers about where the problems are likely to be in each relationship, and what we can do to work around them.

Here are some areas to explore:

1. Know Thyself. For example, what do you do to begin your workday? If you need quiet time before 8 a.m. and your employee habitually greets you at your door when you arrive, how will you react? Or if you expect to hear a high-level overview in an 8:30 meeting and your second-in-command wants to go over every detail, how do you handle it?

2. Know Thy Employee and Do Not Assume. A positive and inviting attitude is a great management tool, but don't plaster on a smile, open the door and decree that all will be well. You need to know the facts, and none of your experience, confidence, enthusiasm and good habits will help you manage successfully unless you understand each of your employees and how best to work with them. Is this one self-assured and quick, that one thoughtful and slow to speak up? Is conformity equally important to you and to your workers? Or do you need someone who thrives on the new and the different? Knowing these things, not assuming them, will help you make necessary changes, avoid obstacles and prevent conflicts with people who operate differently from you.

3. Be Flexible in Your Management Style. You have probably studied dozens of management gurus and know their styles well. You have leadership qualities that got you here. But do you know how to adapt your own style to create the chemistry you need to work well with those who work for you? Can you summon this chemistry around different people, so that you know how best to direct them and they understand precisely what you mean - despite the differences between you?

How do managers find the time to understand themselves AND each worker AND how to interact? A better question might be how do we NOT find the time? People issues will always take the greatest chunk of the day, but successful solutions to the inevitable conflicts that arise touch every other aspect of the business world. The trial-and-error method is slow, even counterproductive, in resolving compatibility issues. Unique new assessments, as mentioned above, can predict work relationships by looking at you and your employees and telling you what is going to happen when you get together.

Think of these assessments as radar that can give you advance knowledge about what could cause a destructive collision and show you how to avoid it. It's not exactly a troubleshooting manual for each employee. But it's the next best thing.