“I’d open the review by naming the pattern, not the person: three briefs, three misses, and the gap is between what was asked and what got made. Then I’d ask her to walk me through how she read each brief, because I spent years blaming myself for bad briefs until I realized the real fix is asking I don’t understand this, give me context before the work starts.”

“I would open the review by naming the pattern, not the person: three briefs in a row landed off target, and that tells me something in our setup is broken before it gets to her desk. Then I'd ask what she needs from me so corrections feel like direction, not attack, because a designer who shuts down stops hearing the brief altogether.”

“I have had to learn that feedback lands so much softer when I name the work, not the person, and when I make it clear I am for them before I am against the work. In that review, I would start by telling her exactly what I see in her talent that I do not want to lose, then point to the brief as the shared thing we are both trying to solve, not a scorecard on her worth.”

“I would open the review by naming the pattern, not the person: three briefs in a row landed somewhere else, and I am trying to understand what is getting lost between us. I would ask her to walk me through how she heard each brief, because the gap is usually upstream of the pixels.”