Master the conversations most people avoid
A skills-first course for professionals who need to give hard feedback clearly, receive it without flinching, and turn it into real workplace progress. No theory — just practical tools for the conversations that actually matter.
"The goal isn't a perfect conversation — it's the skill to have the real one."— Shani Roberts
What you'll learn
What you'll be able to do
- Prepare for any feedback conversation by clarifying your purpose, separating facts from assumptions, and anticipating reactions before the meeting begins.
- Deliver behavior-based, impact-focused feedback that is direct and respectful — without vague softening or unintended harshness.
- Adapt your approach when giving feedback across power dynamics: to a peer, a direct report, a manager, or a cross-functional partner.
- Receive difficult or unfair feedback without becoming defensive, dismissive, or disengaged — and extract what is genuinely useful.
- Repair trust and reset expectations after a feedback conversation that went sideways or left things unresolved.
- Build a personal feedback action plan with specific follow-up steps, progress check-ins, and a habit for ongoing two-way feedback.
How it works
A school that adapts to you
This isn't a set of static videos. Every lesson is generated live and tuned to where you actually are.
We learn your level
A quick placement check tailors your starting point so you're never bored or lost.
Lessons adapt as you go
Each lesson is written for your pace and your goal, adjusting as your skills grow.
Your AI coach keeps you moving
Checkpoints, feedback, and gentle nudges turn progress into a real result.
The curriculum
What's inside your school
5 modules · 20 lessons
Prepare for the Conversation
Before any feedback conversation begins, the groundwork you lay determines whether it goes somewhere useful. This module teaches learners to clarify their purpose, distinguish facts from assumptions, gather concrete examples, and think carefully about timing, setting, and the other person's likely starting point — so they walk in prepared, not just willing.
- 1.1Clarify Your Purpose Before You Open Your MouthIncluded
- 1.2Separate Facts from AssumptionsIncluded
- 1.3Consider Timing, Setting, and the Other Person's Starting PointIncluded
- 1.4The Feedback-Planning WorksheetIncluded
Give Feedback That Is Clear, Direct, and Respectful
Preparation only matters if the delivery follows through. This module focuses on the real-time craft of giving feedback — using behavior-based language, framing impact clearly, asking genuine questions, and avoiding the communication patterns that make feedback land as an attack or evaporate as a vague suggestion. Learners practice language, not just concepts, and end every conversation with a clear agreement rather than an open question.
- 2.1Behavior-Based Feedback and Impact StatementsIncluded
- 2.2Balanced Language, Not the Feedback SandwichIncluded
- 2.3Ask Questions and Keep the Conversation Two-WayIncluded
- 2.4End With a Clear AgreementIncluded
Handle Difficult Feedback Conversations
Some feedback conversations are hard not because the message is unclear but because the situation is charged — recurring behavior, high stakes, power imbalances, emotional reactions, or a history between the people involved. This module equips learners to navigate these harder conversations with skill and composure, covering the most common difficult scenarios they are likely to face in real workplaces.
- 3.1Address Recurring Behavior Without Repeating YourselfIncluded
- 3.2Deliver Feedback About Quality, Communication Style, and PerformanceIncluded
- 3.3Navigate Defensiveness and Emotional ReactionsIncluded
- 3.4Give Feedback Across Power Dynamics and RelationshipsIncluded
Receive Feedback Without Losing the Message
Receiving feedback well is a skill — and for most people, a harder one than giving it. This module focuses on what happens on the receiving end: how to stay open when feedback stings, how to manage the emotional reaction without letting it override the message, how to ask for more when feedback is vague, and how to make a deliberate decision about what to do with what you heard.
- 4.1Listen for What Is Useful — Even When It's Hard to HearIncluded
- 4.2Manage Your Reaction Without Dismissing the FeedbackIncluded
- 4.3Ask Clarifying Questions and Get to SpecificsIncluded
- 4.4Recognize Unhelpful Feedback and Decide What to DoIncluded
Turn Feedback Into Better Work
Feedback has no value if it stops at the conversation. This final module is where insight becomes intention and intention becomes action. Learners build a follow-up plan, practice communicating their progress, learn to request the ongoing feedback they need, and develop the skills to repair trust when a feedback conversation went badly. The module closes with a full applied activity — My Feedback Action Plan — that integrates everything from the course.
- 5.1Build a Follow-Up Plan That Actually WorksIncluded
- 5.2Communicate Progress and Request Ongoing FeedbackIncluded
- 5.3Repair Trust After a Conversation That Went SidewaysIncluded
- 5.4My Feedback Action PlanIncluded
Who it's for
Is this you?
First-time managers
You're responsible for your team's performance but nobody taught you how to deliver the feedback that actually changes behavior.
Individual contributors
You need to push back on a peer, raise a concern upward, or receive hard feedback without letting it derail you.
Cross-functional partners
You have real influence over outcomes but no direct authority — and vague, avoided feedback is killing your projects.
Experienced managers
You've had hundreds of feedback conversations and still have a few recurring situations you haven't fully cracked.
Emerging leaders
You're building the professional credibility to lead — and giving and receiving feedback well is a core part of how people will see you.
Remote & hybrid professionals
Your feedback conversations happen across Slack, video calls, and time zones — and the stakes for getting them right are higher, not lower.
Questions
Frequently asked
Your teacher
A note from your teacher
Shani Roberts
If you've ever left a feedback conversation thinking, that didn't go the way I needed it to — or avoided having one altogether because you couldn't figure out how to start — you're not alone, and you're not bad at your job. Feedback is genuinely hard. Not because people are fragile or workplaces are broken, but because most of us were never actually taught how to do it. We picked up habits, we watched others fumble through it, and we learned to soften, delay, or sidestep the conversations that mattered most.
That's the problem I built this course to solve.
I didn't design this around theory or tidy frameworks. I built it around the scenarios that actually derail feedback conversations: the recurring behavior you've addressed twice already and nothing's changed; the peer whose communication style is causing real friction but you have no authority over them; the manager who gives you feedback that's too vague to act on; the conversation you thought went fine until the relationship quietly cooled afterward. These are the moments where generic advice fails you. You need something more specific — a way to prepare, a way to stay clear and direct without being harsh, and a way to follow through so the conversation actually produces change.
What I want for you is simple: to walk into hard conversations with a plan, and out of them with a path forward. Not every conversation will go perfectly. Some will get emotional. Some will land better than others. But when you have the skills — when you know how to separate facts from assumptions before you open your mouth, how to deliver behavior-based feedback that doesn't leave the other person guessing, how to receive criticism without shutting down, and how to repair things when they go sideways — you stop dreading feedback and start using it.
The course is structured so you build as you go. You'll work through preparation, delivery, the hardest conversations, receiving feedback, and follow-through — in that order — and you'll leave with two concrete tools you can use immediately: a Feedback-Planning Worksheet and a personal Feedback Action Plan. No fluff, no filler. Just the skills that make feedback work.
If you're ready to stop avoiding the conversations that matter and start having them well — this is where you start.
— Shani Roberts
Start your journey today
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- 5 modules, 20 lessons
- AI-adaptive lessons tuned to your level
- Quizzes & checkpoints to lock in progress
- Your own AI learning coach
- Learn on any device, at your pace
- Full access for as long as you're subscribed