Her output is the best on the team. Two people have asked not to be paired with her. This is the conversation that gets postponed for a year.
A product manager who has just taken over a team of nine.
Sasha Bright is the strongest individual contributor on the team and the reason two of the last four retro sessions ended early. She interrupts, dismisses ideas sharply in front of the group, and rewrote a colleague's work over a weekend without telling him. Two people have asked, separately, not to be paired with her. You have been in the role six weeks.
Make the impact of the behaviour concrete and undeniable, without attacking her character or losing her — and agree what changes.
Sasha
Staff Engineer, your team
She opens guarded, and she is holding 4 things back — 1 near the surface, 1 that take real questioning, and 2 you will only get to if the conversation genuinely goes well. What they are, and what makes her say them, is the part you have to find. She is not scripted to volunteer any of it.
The objectives for this scenario, and the four axes every manager feedback call is graded on.
Did the person leave in no doubt about what specifically needs to change? Softening that obscures the message is the most common failure in this conversation.
Was the feedback anchored in observable behaviour and dated examples, rather than characterisation ('you seem disengaged') or second-hand report?
Did they listen to the response and adjust where there was genuinely new information, without abandoning the message when it got uncomfortable?
Did it end with a shared understanding of what changes, by when, and what happens next — or with the manager relieved it was over?
The message landed, was accepted, and there is a specific agreement.
It landed and was not accepted. Better than most managers achieve.
The message got so padded that the person left thinking they were doing fine. The most common way this conversation fails.
It turned adversarial and nothing was agreed.
Giving behavioural feedback to a high performer without losing the message to the argument. 15 minutes, live voice, and a scored debrief you can replay. The first call is free.