Four hard conversations every manager avoids. Plus a bonus on the one most managers don't have often enough. Built around TONE, a feedback model designed to be remembered when your hands are sweating.
By Arran Russell · 15 years inside a business that scaled from 25 to 100+
Pop your email below. I'll send the PDF straight to your inbox, and you'll join Behind Closed Doors, my weekly read on management.
Most feedback models give you a structure for the room you're already in. TONE starts earlier and ends later. Test it. Open the door. Name it. End with the road back. The first letter of each step spells TONE, which is also the brand.
Is this for them, or for you? And is now the right time?
Most bad feedback is bad because it should not have been given in the first place. T is the filter that catches frustration before it gets dressed up as feedback.
Have they had two seconds to brace, and do they know what's coming?
The brain on the receiving end of unexpected feedback is in threat mode, not listening mode. O puts them back in a state where they can hear you.
Behaviour, impact, ask. In that order.
The bit most managers think feedback is. Specific behaviour. Concrete impact. A clear ask. Three words to remember when your hands are sweating.
What changes, by when, and when do we check?
Most feedback evaporates by Wednesday. E exists to stop that. Diary the follow-up before they leave the room. Reaffirm the person, not just the behaviour.
Every conversation includes the situation, what to avoid, how to prepare, the script mapped to TONE, what to say when it goes sideways, and the one principle to remember if you forget everything else.
When someone isn't meeting expectations and you've been putting off the conversation. Lead with empathy first. People don't usually wake up wanting to do worse work.
When something specific happened. A meeting, a decision, a piece of communication. Not a pattern, a moment. How to deliver it without the shit sandwich.
The most expensive 30 seconds in management. Three scenarios: yes, not yet, or miles off. Each gets a different conversation. Five things never to say.
The conversation that bridges underperformance and an exit. Done well, it gives someone a real chance. Done badly, it's theatre. Most managers don't know how to do it.
The conversation managers don't have often enough. Built on Blanchard's One Minute Praising. Praise effort and choice, not ability. Don't bundle it with anything else.
Giving feedback turns out to be the unnatural atomic building block atop which the unnatural skill set of management gets built.— Ben Horowitz
Feedback is the bit of management that goes against every social instinct you have. It's also the bit everything else leans on. What you tolerate, you teach. Every behaviour you walk past becomes the new floor.
I was the senior exec inside a business that grew from 25 people to well over 100 — the person the founder relied on to develop the management layer beneath them.
I made every mistake in the book. Avoided the hard conversations. Let small problems become crises. This guide is everything I wish someone had given me in year one. The scripts you can use this week. The model you'll remember the next time your hands are sweating.
Get the guide. Have the conversation. Move on. Free PDF, straight to your inbox.
Get the guide →