A training exercise you can play

Practice a hard conversation before you have to have one.

You play a manager. The employee gets defensive, the way people do. Type what you'd say, they answer it, and at the end you find out how you handled it.

Two minutes. No sign-up, nothing saved.

Dana Whitfield

Analyst, reporting to you

You are a manager. Dana works for you.

Dana's last two reports had mistakes. You are about to bring that up. Dana will push back.

Click through using the provided example text, or write your own reply.

What you know about Dana

Nothing to invent. Here is what happened:

Two weeks ago Dana sent a report to a client with the wrong revenue numbers on slide 4. They were last quarter's numbers. The client noticed before anyone here did.
Last month the August forecast Dana built had regional totals that did not add up. You caught that one before it went out.
Dana has been on your team two years. Until this spring the work was reliable.
Dana is genuinely busy right now, running three projects at once. That part is true and you know it.

What you get feedback on

Four things that decide whether feedback changes behavior or just makes someone defensive:

You named something specific that happened
A real example Dana can picture, not a label like careless or sloppy.
You avoided always and never
Words like "always," "never," and "everyone thinks" give Dana something to argue with.
You asked what Dana thought, and waited for the answer
Asking is not enough. You have to stop and let Dana answer before you move on.
You agreed a next step with a date on it
Something specific, by a specific time.

Feedback comes at the end, and each point quotes a line you wrote. If a quote is not word-for-word in what you said, it is not shown.

Behind it

The interesting part is not that it talks back.

It is the decisions behind it. What this teaches, why a normal course cannot teach it, how the four points connect to real manager behavior, and what I built for the times the AI gets it wrong.

Read the design rationale