chapters (6)
Don't Bury the Lead
The moment. You've scheduled the hard talk, and you open with ten minutes of small talk and praise before getting near the point.
What most people do
Cushion endlessly, or sandwich the real message between compliments so it never lands.
Why it misfires. A long wind-up is agony - they can feel it coming - and the feedback sandwich buries the point so completely they leave unsure anything was wrong. Softening into confusion isn't kind.
The rewrite
"I want to talk about something important, and I'll be direct because you deserve that: your work on X hasn't been meeting the bar, and I want to figure out how we fix that together."
The move: name the issue in the first minute. After a brief, honest framing, say the actual issue clearly and early. A short warning, then the truth. Respect them enough to be clear.
Your turn
Write your opening two lines: a brief frame, then the issue named plainly.
Edge cases. Warm framing is fine ("this is because I think you can do better"); a wall of praise first is not - it turns the real message into a footnote.
This week
If you have a hard talk coming, write the first-minute version that names the issue.