Use case
Managers rehearse the review before the rep sits down.
Performance reviews, difficult feedback and pipeline conversations, practiced with a report who pushes back. Sales managers, team leads and HR business partners.
The problem
- First-time managers get a slide deck on feedback and then a real person across the table.
- Hard conversations get postponed because nobody has practiced them.
- The same manager who coaches reps on objections has never rehearsed their own.
What rehearsal looks like
Step 01
Load your management framework
Review structure, feedback model, the behaviours you promote and the ones you correct.
Step 02
Meet a report who disagrees
A strong performer with a bad quarter who has three explanations ready.
Step 03
Be scored on the conversation
Specific, evidence-based, forward-looking, and did the report leave with a plan they own.
Step 04
Prepare, then hold the real one
Ten minutes of rehearsal before the meeting, not a workshop once a year.
A scenario on the floor
Scenario
The Bad Quarter
- Buyer
- Senior AE, top performer last year, forty percent of quota this quarter, defensive.
- Goal
- Agree a recovery plan without losing the person.
- Twist
- He blames the territory change and asks if this is a performance plan.
Rubric
- Opens with specifics, not labels
- Listens before diagnosing
- Separates the territory question from the behaviour question
- Ends with a plan the report articulates
What managers see afterwards
- Feedback rubric pass rate
- Manager readiness before review season
- Practice frequency
- Self-assessed confidence before and after
Questions
- Is this HR software?
- No. It is rehearsal. Nothing from a practice session is an employment record, and the AI transparency page says so.
Related use cases
Or see how Kulissa works and talk to us.
Run this scenario on your playbook.
Twenty minutes. Your documents, a live buyer, the debrief your managers would read on Monday.