Coaching & Workshops
Most feedback training teaches a formula that nobody uses on a Tuesday. This session works on the actual barrier, which is that managers are afraid of the reaction, and builds the habit of saying the useful thing at the time.
Why it matters
Everyone has been taught a framework. They still say nothing, because the real barrier is anticipating the other person's face. So feedback gets saved up for the review, where it arrives as a surprise and lands as an ambush.
Saved-up feedback is also unfair. Six months of small corrections delivered at once reads as a character assessment rather than a set of fixable things, and the person quite reasonably feels blindsided.
What the session covers
In the room
Most feedback does not need a meeting. We practise the short, in-the-moment version that is actually sustainable.
Defensiveness, tears, and the person who agrees with everything and changes nothing. Each needs a different response.
Feedback to a peer or to your own manager, which is where most people have no model at all.
Signs you need this
A good test: ask a manager when they last told someone something mildly uncomfortable. If they have to think about it, the habit is not there.
If two or three of these are true you are past the point where it resolves on its own. None of them are unusual, and all of them are cheaper to fix than to wait out.
Sound familiar
Afterward
Which is the only version that is sustainable and the only version people can act on.
Because nothing in them is new to anyone.
Teams that get honest feedback start giving it, which is where the real value is.
How it runs
Managers at any level. Often run for an intact team, including the manager, which is more uncomfortable and considerably more effective.
Sessions run on site or virtually, and they are built around situations attendees bring rather than case studies from a textbook. You get a fixed fee before we start, and the person who scopes it is the person who delivers it.
Practicalities
Questions
This is the everyday habit. Performance conversations are for when a pattern has become a problem. Doing this well means you need those far less often.
Anyone who manages, and often the whole team. A team that has all had the same session gives each other feedback far more readily.
Yes, and it is the part people dread and the part that works. We keep it grounded in situations attendees actually brought.
Half a day. A full day if combined with performance conversations.
Yes. Senior teams often have the worst feedback habits, because nobody has told them anything difficult in years.
It is precisely where it is most needed and it takes longer. We would set expectations with you about that rather than promise a single session fixes it.
Feedback is harder remotely because the casual moments disappear. We cover the specific adjustments, and it pairs well with the distributed teams session.
Yes. Attendees bring something they have been avoiding, and most leave having planned the actual conversation.
Related
For when a pattern has become a problem that needs naming.
Performance Conversations →Feedback is most of what coaching actually is.
Coaching Skills for Managers →Senior-led, delivered by the person you meet
Tell us about your team and we will scope a session. No obligation, and we will say if one of the others fits better.
Tell us what is going on