GullyHR
Communication Skills

Say the Hard Part, and Keep the Person

Practice in correcting work without a row, praising something specific enough to be repeated, and taking criticism without defending - including the feedback that has to travel upward.

The marking butts of a rifle range: a sunken trench in shadow behind a sandbagged parapet, one target run up on its carriage while the next frame stays down, the long-handled marking disc raised against the edge of the bull, the last hole pasted over, and the paste pot and patches on the trench ledge.

The Correction Nobody Made Until the Appraisal Form

A quality issue is noticed in March. It is mentioned in December, on the appraisal form, in the box marked areas of improvement. By then the employee has worked that way all year and reads the note as an ambush rather than as help. Managers skip the March conversation because the last one they attempted turned into a row and cost them a week of atmosphere. This session builds the wording for that conversation, and the practice to hold it before the habit sets.

What the Session Works On

The Correction You Have Been Postponing

Every participant brings one real conversation they have been avoiding. They plan it, run it, take feedback on how it landed, then run it again with the wording changed.

Naming the Behaviour, Not the Person

Separating what was observed from what it was assumed to mean. The report reached me after the review, rather than you are careless. Practised on your own examples.

Praise Specific Enough to Repeat

Most appreciation is too vague to act on. Participants practise naming exactly what worked and why it mattered, so the person can do it again on purpose rather than by accident.

Taking Feedback Without Defending

The urge to explain arrives before the point is finished. Work on the pause, the clarifying question, and what to say when you disagree but still want to hear it out.

Feedback That Has to Go Upward

How to tell your manager something is not working, in a business where the promoter signs everything. Structure, timing, and how much to put in writing.

Correcting Work You Do Not Own

Sales telling operations a commitment is unrealistic. Quality telling production the same fault has returned. Feedback with no reporting line behind it needs different wording.

A Feedback Moment Between Appraisals

Building a short, regular exchange that fits a supervisor's day, so the annual form records what has already been said instead of delivering it for the first time.

What Changes at Work

Appraisals With Fewer Surprises

Points raised through the year turn the review into a summary, which makes it a shorter and far less defensive meeting for both people in it.

Supervisors Who Stop Passing It Up

A team lead who can hold the correction himself stops routing routine performance issues to HR or to the promoter.

Fewer Exits After One Bad Conversation

Feedback aimed at behaviour rather than character is easier to hear, which removes one common trigger for a sudden resignation.

Recognition People Can Act On

Specific praise tells someone which behaviour to keep. Vague praise only tells them you were in a good mood that day.

How GullyHR Runs It

Your Own Postponed Conversations

The role plays are the corrections your managers are actually sitting on, de-identified with your approval, not case studies out of a book.

A Wording Bank Participants Keep

People leave with sentence openings for the hard moments: raising a repeat fault, declining a request, correcting somebody senior to them.

We Check the Format First

Where managers cannot give feedback because nobody ever gave them a review structure, that is a design fault rather than a skill gap. We say so instead of running the workshop twice.

Managers Briefed for the Follow-Through

The observation sheet goes to each participant's own manager, so what was practised is reinforced in one-to-ones rather than left to fade.

Have the March Conversation in March

Bring us the corrections your managers are postponing. Those are the session.

Questions Buyers Ask

No. Peer feedback and upward feedback are the harder halves, and most businesses have no habit for either. Where juniors are unlikely to speak freely in front of their own manager, we run separate cohorts.

Exclusive Business Offer

Maximize team productivity and automation.

Attendance, onboarding and policy all run on the same handful of manual steps. A free HR audit tells you which of them is costing you most.

Prefer the full picture? Request a free 360-degree HR audit.

Talk to an HR consultant

Your details stay private. No spam, ever.