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Prepare for a difficult conversation with my manager

Something needs saying to your manager and you have rehearsed it badly ten times.

Longcommunicationmanagementpreparation
Help me prepare for a difficult conversation with my manager.

1. State the one outcome I actually want. If my notes contain several, make me choose, and say which one the others depend on.
2. Draft my opening: two sentences, specific, no throat-clearing, no lengthy preamble that lets the topic drift.
3. Separate what I know happened from how I interpreted it, and show me where I have blurred the two.
4. Anticipate their three most likely responses, including the defensive one, and give me a line for each that keeps the conversation moving rather than winning a point.
5. Name what I am willing to concede, and what I am not.
6. Tell me honestly if any part of my framing would land as an accusation, and rewrite that part.

The situation:

Making it yours

  • Paste your own material where the prompt asks for it. Everything above that line is instruction, not content.
  • Delete any rule that does not apply to you. A shorter prompt that fits beats a thorough one that does not.
  • If the answer comes back vague, add a line saying what you do not want. Constraints work better than encouragement.

Raises and moves. Promotion cases, reviews, offers, hard conversations and deciding whether to leave.

Related prompts

Frame a salary negotiationAn offer has landed and you want to counter without wrecking the goodwill.Write the case for my promotionPromotion season, and you need a document your manager can take upstairs.Draft my performance self-reviewThe review form is open, the deadline is Friday, and your memory of March is gone.Decide between two offersTwo offers on the table and a deadline you keep pushing back.Write a resignation letterYou've decided to leave and the letter should be short, warm and final.Is this promotion case defensible?Before your manager has to argue it in a calibration meeting.

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