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The ten seconds after hard feedback

Nadia Hussain

Engineering Manager, your manager10 minLeeds

(Work conversations)

Your manager has a specific example and has stopped talking. What you say next decides whether this is a conversation or a record.

Aug 7, 20266 minutes

Do not start with but

The first instinct is to supply the circumstances, and it is almost always accurate. It is also heard as not having taken the feedback in, and that is what turns one observation into a pattern in somebody's head.

The circumstances are worth saying. They are worth saying second. The order is the entire technique and it costs nothing to get right.

Name the specific thing back

Not the general point. The actual example: so on Thursday's call, when I cut across the client. Saying it back is the only available proof that you heard it rather than survived it.

It also forces a useful check. If you cannot say the example back, you did not get one, and the next section is what to do about that.

Ask for the detail

What exactly, when, who else noticed. This is not pushing back and a reasonable manager is usually relieved to be asked, vague feedback is often vague because giving it was uncomfortable, not because the detail does not exist.

Leaving the room without it is the worst outcome of the meeting. You will have agreed to change something and you will not know what.

End with one concrete thing

One action and a date to check back. Otherwise the conversation happened and nothing did, and you will have it again in six weeks with more evidence attached.

Nadia Hussain has two people who came to her afterwards and a specific example ready. The rubric scores ownership separately from agreement, which matters: you can disagree with feedback and still own the part that was yours, and those are different things.

Who this is about

Nadia Hussain

Engineering Manager, your manager

Nadia has managed people for seven years and has learned to deliver hard feedback in two sentences and then stop talking. She will not soften it, and she will not fill the silence after it. What she is watching for is whether you ask what specifically was said before you start explaining. She is on your side in the sense that matters: she wants you to still be on the team in a year. That is why she will not let 'I'll be more mindful' count as a plan. She grew up in Bradford, moved to Leeds for a job she left after three months, and tells that story to every new hire to make the point that leaving was the right call. Bring her a concrete change and a date and she will meet you halfway; bring her a defence and she will wait it out.

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10 min
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Nadia Hussain, engineering manager, your manager

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