The Manager's New Brief

9.1

Ch. 9 — Feedback, Coaching, and the 1:1

Part III — Leading people

💡 Core idea

Feedback is a habit, not an annual event. The 1:1 is the operating cadence of people leadership: their agenda first, your standards clear, the relationship tended on purpose.

If someone only hears your real view at review time, you have already failed the no-surprise rule (Chapter 4). Ben Balter applies there; it applies here too. Mid-course feedback is how people stay in the loop about themselves.

Feedback is also not automatically helpful. In a meta-analysis of 607 effect sizes (23,663 observations), Kluger and DeNisi (1996) found that feedback interventions improved performance on average (d = .41), but that more than one-third of them decreased performance. Effectiveness fell as attention moved up from the task toward the self. The implication for this chapter is precise: be specific, frequent, and about the work — not a character judgment delivered once a year.

Prepare the 1:1 so it is not a standup

Ben Balter is direct: do not waste the only protected synchronous time on status that could have been written. Their items first, then yours, plus career, wellbeing, and open commitments. Send a short agenda in advance. End with written agreements. Review last week’s commitments at the start of this week’s meeting, or the 1:1 resets to zero every time. The 37signals Manager Playbook makes the same cut: “1:1s are not (just) status updates.” Use some of the time to practice judgment. A question they recommend: “What’s a [design/technical] choice you made this week that we can talk through?”

A simple template is enough: their items, your items, career, wellbeing, commitments. If the week is on fire, still protect the slot. Cancelling 1:1s to “get work done” tells people they are not the work.

Specific praise, prompt correction

Praise that cannot be repeated is decoration. Say the situation, the behavior, and the effect. Corrective feedback uses the same shape — SBI (Situation–Behavior–Impact) or any equivalent, in your own words. Do not save feedback until you are frustrated and then deliver a pile. Frequency beats intensity.

Be concrete about the work and the change, not a vague mood. The 37signals Manager Playbook contrasts a useless prompt — “Something’s not right.” — with a usable one: “By this point, I expected [specific progress or deliverable]. What needs to change to get this back on track by [deadline]?” The same chapter advises: “Avoid the ‘compliment sandwich’. Sandwiching constructive feedback in between positive feedback is usually inauthentic so use it sparingly, if ever.” Say the observation and the request; do not hide a correction between two compliments.

You are also a recipient. Aviv Ben-Yosef argues that receiving feedback badly is how you dry up the supply. If candor is met with defensiveness, you will get less of it, and you will deserve less of it. The manager who only gives feedback is running a one-way system.

When someone disagrees with you, winning the argument is the wrong target. Daniel Lemire points back to listening and asking real questions. You can still decide. You should not pretend that deciding is the same as having understood.

Coaching, directing — and judging

Know which mode you are in, and say it. Coaching sounds like: What does good look like? What’s in your control? What will you try this week? Directing sounds like: Here is the standard, here is the date, here is what I need. Mixing the two without a label — “I’m just coaching” while you have already decided — is confusing and, eventually, untrustworthy. Default to questions that make the other person think, unless time, risk, or a single correct path requires directing. The 37signals Manager Playbook is blunt about the cost of always directing: “If you’re telling people what to do instead of teaching them how to think and problem solve, you’re forced to act in that authority capacity every time your report needs help.”

Much of the 1:1 is how you fade a person from Scope it to Release it (mode 2 to mode 3, Chapter 2) — and how you notice when you are still rewriting, which is Own it (mode 1) disguised as review.

There is a further turn. Jim Grey argues that at some point you must stop coaching indefinitely and evaluate honestly. Continuing to “coach” can be a way of avoiding a judgment you already owe the person and the team. Name the turn when it comes. Chapter 10 takes that turn into performance and exits. This chapter is where you notice that you are approaching it.

Tools

🤖 AI-era tip: Prepare with a tool, then be present

Before a 1:1, use an approved assistant to organize your notes into themes, questions, and open commitments. Then close the draft and be in the conversation. Never put confidential personnel information into a tool that is not approved for that data. Afterward, you can ask for help turning handwritten notes into a clean list of agreements — which you then verify before it becomes a record.

Takeaways

Evidence