How to give negative feedback to an employee (with a scored example)

A slipped quarter is not “I have a bad feeling.” It is missed forecasts, late reviews, customers who waited, a standard you named in January that did not show up in June. Bring the examples. Dates and artefacts beat adjectives. “You seem less engaged” invites a debate about your perception. “The Friday pack has missed the noon send three times, and sales walked into the QBR without the numbers” is something you can manage. If you have not collected the examples, you are not ready for the meeting.

You can say what still works. You cannot use it as a trapdoor. The sandwich — praise, knife, praise — teaches people to wait for the last sentence and ignore the middle. Try sequence instead: the pattern, the examples, the impact, then what remains true about them, then the plan. They should be able to repeat the problem in one sentence when they leave. If they leave thinking the meeting was a pep talk, you were kind to yourself, not to them.

Workload is real. Other teams are real. Your job is to separate constraint from ownership. “I know delivery was late from engineering. You still own the customer update, and it did not go.” That sentence is the job. If you accept the full transfer of blame, you have just agreed that this person cannot be managed. If you deny every constraint, you look unfair and they stop listening. Practise the split: yes to the context, no to the disappearing act.

If you only have a feeling, you are not ready. Pull the Friday packs, the missed send times, the customer updates that did not go, the standard you named in January. Two or three examples are enough. Ten is a dumping. Book a private meeting with a name that does not lie — “performance this quarter,” not “a quick catch-up.” Have the actions you want already drafted so you do not invent them under emotion. A slipped quarter that waits for the annual review becomes a verdict. This meeting is supposed to be management while there is still time.

People remember tone and forget examples. Send a short written note the same day: the pattern, the two or three artefacts, the ask, the dates, and when you will look again. That is not a disciplinary letter unless your process says it is. It is how a conversation becomes a standard. If they later say “I thought I was doing fine,” you will both be able to point at the same paragraph. Softening the email after you were clear in the room is how the message dies the second time. If they send a long defence overnight, reply to the actions and the dates, not to every line of the defence. The recap is the record. A debate in email is how the pattern disappears again.

Answer the question you were asked. If it is not a formal process yet, say so, and say what would make it one — usually the same pattern after the dated review. If it already is, do not hide behind “just a chat.” Ambiguity here is how grievances start. People can take hard news. They cannot take a process they only discover in writing a week later.

Saving it for the annual review. Doing it in passing at the end of a standup. Listing ten issues so none of them is actionable. Setting actions without dates. Softening live because they look upset, then writing a harsher email later. The email is not courage. The room is. Practise staying in the example when they redirect. The quarter already slipped. The only thing left to lose is clarity.