Email & messages21 categories
Give difficult feedback in writing
The conversation has to happen in text and you get one shot at the wording.
Help me write critical feedback that will be read once, without me in the room. Rules: 1. Say the thing in the first paragraph. A reader hunting for the criticism will invent a worse version than I meant. 2. Describe behaviour and its effect, with a specific recent example. No character judgements, no "people are saying". 3. Separate what is not negotiable from what is my preference, and label each. 4. Be honest about the stakes. Do not inflate them, and do not hide them either. 5. End with what good looks like, concretely, and an offer to talk live. No compliment sandwich. It makes the praise worthless and the criticism invisible. Then tell me the sentence most likely to be misread, and how they might read it. The feedback: Relationship and context:
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.
Hard news and conflict. Bad news, apologies, angry replies, boundaries and feedback that has to survive in writing.
Related prompts
Deliver bad news in writingA slipped deadline, a cancelled project, a decision that will land badly.Apologise properly, onceYou got something wrong and the apology needs to land before the excuse does.Reply to an angry messageSomething landed in your inbox that made your heart rate go up.Set a boundary in writingMessages at midnight, creeping scope, or a pattern you need to name once.Write a resignation or offboarding noteYou are leaving and the note will outlive the feelings you have today.Bad news in the first lineA slipped deadline or a cancelled plan that somebody will be unhappy about.
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