Workshop · Leadership
Saying it while it still helps
At the annual review, an employee finally hears about something their supervisor noticed in February and chose to let pass.
- Duration
- 3 hours
- Delivery
- On site · Virtual
- Participants
- From 8 to 25 participants
- Investment
- Request a quote
Investment depends on scope, number of participants and delivery mode. We prepare a proposal at no obligation.
The problem it solves
Between the moment a supervisor notices something and the moment they say it there is a decision, and the decision is almost always to wait. Wait for more examples, wait for the busy season to pass, wait for the review that is coming anyway. Each postponement is reasonable on its own and together they produce the same result: something observed in February mentioned in December, by then a pattern, across a form, with no way to correct it backwards.
The clearest symptom is a review that surprises the person receiving it, but there are others. Recognition so generic it carries no information: good work sounds identical after a routine week and an exceptional one. The supervisor who stores up irritations and delivers them all on the day their patience runs out. The team that hears nothing until something goes wrong, and learns to read silence as the only signal available.
What is lost is more than a timely correction. The person could have adjusted in March what they are told in December, and they know it. The supervisor loses standing, because someone who said nothing for nine months cannot afterwards argue the matter was serious. And over time the silence becomes mutual: the team stops reporting what it sees, and the supervisor leads without the information they needed.
What it covers
The workshop works on a daily practice rather than an annual event. Its claim is simple and gets tested in the room: the value of an observation decays with time and with vagueness, so something small and concrete said within three days is worth more than something complete and polished said in three months. Everything after that is a matter of precision and interval.
The first block separates the observable fact from the judgment about the person, which is where most conversations are lost. On a worksheet, participants convert phrases brought from their own teams, of the lacks commitment or has a bad attitude variety, into descriptions of behavior with a verifiable effect. The exercise is demanding and it carries everything else, because a request for change can only be checked if something observable was named first.
The second block rehearses the conversation in simulation, including the hard version: the person disagrees, offers context the supervisor did not have, or answers with a complaint about their own manager. Specific recognition is trained separately, because it demands the same precision and is almost never practiced, along with asking for feedback about oneself in a way that carries no consequence for whoever offers it.
The closing section fixes two agreements the supervisory team takes away in writing. The first is a maximum interval between noticing something and saying it, adopted as a group standard rather than as individual intent. The second is the boundary with formal performance management: the point at which a conversation stops being feedback, what pushes it across that line, and what is required then, which is no longer talking but following a procedure.
What participants learn
- Identify the observable fact and separate it from the judgment about the person before opening the conversation.
- Apply the fact, effect and request structure in a conversation held within days rather than months.
- Design requests for change that can be verified, with an agreed date to review them.
- Develop specific recognition that tells a person exactly what to repeat.
- Evaluate when a conversation stops being feedback and becomes formal performance management.
Agenda
- Why waiting for the review cancels the effect
- Fact, effect, request: the minimum structure
- The feedback sandwich and what it dilutes
- Specific recognition versus generic praise
- The conversation when the person disagrees
- Asking for upward feedback without punishing the answer
- Where the conversation turns into formal performance management
What the organisation leaves with
- One shared feedback structure adopted across the whole supervisory team instead of one per supervisor.
- A written agreement on the maximum interval between noticing something and saying it.
- A shared standard for where feedback ends and formal performance management begins.
- Supervisors will be able to frame a checkable request for change instead of a general remark about attitude.
Programme details
- Format
- Workshop
- Also available as
- Executive talk · Intensive workshop · Corporate training day
- Languages
- Español · English
- Includes
- Participant workbook
- Action plan
- Post-training resources
- Facilitation
- ALUD Consulting LLC — Global Business Transformation.
Who it is for
- Supervisors who review their people once a year and say little in between.
- Managers leading specialists with deeper technical experience than their own.
- Teams that want one shared feedback practice instead of six.
Frequently asked questions
- Does this replace our performance review system?
- No. They are different things and should not be confused: the review is a formal cycle with consequences, while this is the ordinary conversation that ought to happen between one review and the next. A feedback workshop also will not repair a review system that does not work, and should not be booked in that hope.
- Is there role play, even with a team that dislikes that format?
- Yes, and it is central to the session, done in pairs and in short stretches rather than in front of the whole room. It is worth saying before booking: if the group decides not to practice, the session becomes a presentation about feedback and behavior at work does not change.
- Does it help a supervisor leading specialists with deeper technical experience?
- Yes, and that case gets significant attention. Precisely there, feedback has to rest on observable effects on the work and on commitments rather than on technical judgment, because a supervisor who argues about content loses the conversation and their standing at the same time.
- Can it be delivered to a full leadership team?
- Yes, and there is an advantage: when leadership adopts the same structure, the agreed interval stops depending on individual style. Be warned that in a leadership group the upward feedback block is usually the most uncomfortable, and also the one that changes how meetings run.
Request this programme
Tell us the context and we will prepare a proposal tailored to your organisation. No obligation.
Working this inside the organisation
If this challenge will not be settled in one session, ALUD Consulting LLC works it as consulting: management consulting, human resources, strategy, organisational design, leadership development and business transformation.