Scripts and kits for the parts of managing nobody trained you for.

Giving Difficult Feedback

The situation

Someone’s work isn’t good enough and they need to hear it plainly: a report that keeps coming back with errors, a deliverable that missed the brief, a habit that’s starting to cost the team. Not a firing, not a formal review. A direct, in-person correction you want to make without blowing up the relationship.

The script

“[Name], got a few minutes? It’s about the last few deliverables. I’ve got a couple of specific things.

Here’s what I’m seeing: the last three reports came back with numbers that didn’t reconcile, and I had to send two of them back before they went out.

That’s a problem because it slows the whole close, and it puts your name on work that isn’t at your level.

What I need going forward is every report cross-checked against the source file before it comes to me. That’s the bar.

I’m telling you this because I know you can hit it. So tell me: what’s making it hard right now?”

Then stop and let them answer. The last line is the most important one in the script: it turns a lecture into a conversation, and it’s where you find out whether this is a skill gap, a workload problem, or something going on you didn’t know about.

If they push back

“That’s not fair, the brief changed three times.” → “Maybe it did, and we’ll fix the brief. The cross-check still has to happen. It’s your name on the work that goes out.”