Lisa Friscia

Judgments Aren’t Feedback: Turn Traits Into Action

Strategic Advisor, Fractional Chief People Officer & Startup Mentor

Identify common red flags and language that signals when feedback is about traits instead of behaviors.

Spot personality-driven feedback

Use the SBI (Situation–Behavior–Impact) framework to translate vague or biased feedback into clear, actionable input.

Shift from traits to behaviors

Practice phrasing that's specific, performance-based, and forward-looking—so it builds growth instead of resentment

Deliver feedback that drives action

Managers and leaders are not taught how to deliver feedback that changes behavior and drives performance. The result? Managers gets frustrated when people don't implement feedback and performance and business results suffer. It doesn't need to be this way. You can transform the way you manage and become the manager who shares direct feedback and drives results. You can get there in this course. You will become more confident and competent sharing feedback fearlessly. WHAT TO EXPECT: Tactics you can implement immediately. Sessions are loaded with lively discussion, breakout exercises, and a 27-page learning guide to both personalize and customize your learning experience. In just 3 sessions, you will have more tools in your tool belt to more effectively drive performance on your team. COURSE CONTENT: • How to speak candidly, and with care, using the Fearless Feedback Model• How to structure feedback using Headline, Observation, Ask• How to navigate reactions using HEAR• How to identify the core behavior needing to be addressed using Name It To Tame It• How to shift to a High Cadence, Low Stakes mental model• How to lay a foundation for feedback with the Relationship Kickoff Conversation• How to view feedback as information to be shared to help someone be their best• How to lead as a human with standards of excellence You can also expect: - A 27-page learning guide loaded with sample language, exercises, and reference materials to leverage well beyond the course- Videos modeling the Headline, Observation, Ask model- Video modeling how to navigate reactions to feedback- Video illustrating how to effectively kick off a feedback relationship with a new team member- Drafting feedback for real time situations you're facing How you view delivering feedback as a manager and leader will fundamentally change. You will have greater confidence and competence opening a feedback conversation, delivering direct and caring feedback, and navigating emotional reactions to your message. Invest in the skills that will truly elevate you and your team's business impact.

Drive stronger performance with actionable feedback.

Course syllabus

Before each session, you will have 1-2 pre-session videos to watch. These videos model the concepts we'll be learning in our live sessions.The first session's videos take ~20 min, after that, they're just ~5 min.

Pre-Work Videos & Materials

We kick off our course by exploring the impact Mindset and Relationship have on feedback delivery. Learn 1 core perspective shift, 3 mindset tactics, and then how to lead the Relationship Kickoff Conversation.

Tues, Oct 21, 2025

This will be the meatiest session with feedback model exploration and you'll walk away with new language and tools to immediately have more impactful conversations.

Thurs, Oct 23, 2025

Bring it all together with tools to handle reactions and even more practice and discussion to enable you to graduate as a Fearless Deliverer of Feedback.

Tues, Oct 28, 2025

Course schedule

You are a manager within a start-up &amp; pace of business can feel impossible to give real time feedback to both direct &amp; indirect reports.

You're a leader who finds yourself putting off feedback conversations out of dread, fear, or lack of confidence.

You are a manager wanting to elevate your career by distinguishing yourself as a developer of great talent.

Who will thrive in this courses:

What you can expect from this course:

You will practice addressing the hardest feedback conversations: giving feedback on defensiveness, lack of strategic thinking, a need for greater flexibility, and more. We're not practicing the easy conversations, we're focusing on the conversations we avoid most.

Practice the most difficult types of feedback conversations

Beyond the live sessions, you will walk away with an invaluable resource, the Deliver Fearless Feedback learning guide. Filled with the HOA framework, HEAR model for handling reactions, and 6 examples of sample feedback.

27-page learning guide packed with frameworks and sample langauge

You will adopt the Fearless Feedback Model and learn to operate at the intersection of Mindset, Relationship, and Delivery. These combined enable a manager and leader to say what needs to be said to help someone achieve their highest impact.

Begin delivering difficult feedback fearlessly

You'll learn to streamline your feedback using the Headline, Observation, Ask model. Each step will empower you to strategically engineer a more positive and productive reception, and perception, of your feedback.

Deconstruct the core elements of successful feedback conversations

When someone provides excuses, cries, or gets defensive, you will be equipped with the HEAR model. You will learn to stay true to your north star and not get sucked into tennis match type conversations.

Develop your ability to successfully handle reactions to feedback

You will create a new internal narrative on what it means to deliver tough feedback. You will feel empowered to engage, discuss, and share feedback that will help your people be their best, and help you drive a culture you're proud of.

Increase your confidence & competence

You will elevate to your next level of management and leadership by distinguishing yourself as someone who fearlessly develops your people to reach their best version of themselves.

Distinguish yourself as a developer of people

Transform your management by driving stronger performance through direct and actionable feedback.

Katie Ceccarini

August 2025

October 2025

🚀 This course will teach you the core principles and methods behind Customer Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) research — leveraging the power of OpenAI's ChatGPT (Generative AI)! 🎉 BONUS 3RD SESSION just added! You'll learn:🔍 → How to create Synthetic Personas to evaluate customer progress through the eyes of individuals with different motivations, desires, avoidances, and jobs-to-be-done.🧠 → How to apply the Big Five Personality Traits model (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) to create three or more synthetic personas.🛠️ → The critical difference between Product-Market Fit and Language-Market Fit — focus, goal, indicators, and outcome.🎯 → How to use ChatGPT prompting to uncover Language-Market Fit across synthetic personas, testing headlines, sub-headlines, social proof, and features-as-benefits.📣 → How to apply what you learn about Language-Market Fit across your website, email marketing, and social media.. 🧑‍💻 Hands-on Case Study ExperienceWe'll work through a real-world case study using 30+ interactive ChatGPT prompting scripts (yours to keep!) to make the learning process fun and interactive. You'll also master 📚 The Wheel of Progress® Framework, covering the Cycle of Customer Progress:🌀 First Thought🕵️‍♂️ Passively Looking⚡ 1st Triggering Event🔎 Actively Looking⚡ 2nd Triggering Event🤔 Deciding✅ Hiring/Firing📱 Consuming♻️ Continuous Use 🛤️ You'll dive deep into identifying the Twelve (12) Elements of Progress:📅 Events🎯 Forces and Desires (habits, pushes, desires, avoidances, pulls, anxieties)🎯 Jobs, Pains, and Gains🧰 Solutions (core job, prior, in-conjunction, co-existing)🚧 Constraints (internal, external, temporal) Plus, you'll understand how Switching Behavior happens when promoting forces (pushes, desires, pulls) outweigh blocking forces (habits, avoidances, anxieties). 🧘‍♀️ Case Study Focus:You'll act as a researcher, product marketer, product manager, or experience designer, exploring the customer JTBD of "achieving mindfulness" through The Serenity App. 🎥 ALL SESSIONS RECORDED!By the end, you'll walk away ready to apply:✨ Customer Jobs-to-Be-Done✨ The Cycle of Customer Progress✨ Switching Behavior✨ Synthetic Personas✨ Language-Market Fit... directly to your organization or projects!

Learn and apply customer JTBD research using an interactive ChatGPT case study.

Course syllabus: Three Sessions

1st Session: The Wheel of Progress® Framework and Cycle of Customer Progress 2nd Session: The Twelve Elements of Progress and Switching Behavior (additional topics)

Two Sessions (Tuesday and Thursday)

LIVE sessions held with the entire cohort enabling conversation and interaction during the course. Over 25+ ChatGPT prompt scripts around a tailored Case Study to help teach JTBD principles and methods. All activities performed during the class sessions. Pre-read materials.

LIVE Cohort Sessions with Interactive ChatGPT Exercises

Leveraging the Maven community for posting announcements, reading materials, general discussion, and takeaways from the class..

Maven Community

Anyone seeking to learn how to apply jobs-to-be-done research to drive better customer engagement and experience design.

The Digital Marketer seeking to better understand the customer journey from first thought (struggling moment) to continuous use (habit).

The Content Marketing Manager who wants to tailor messaging around the progress customers are seeking to make in their lives.

The Researcher who wants to understand the entire customer cycle of progress (first thought to continuous use/habit formation).

The Product Marketer seeking to gain a better understanding of switching behavior (pushes, pulls, habits, anxieties).

The UX Designer looking to broaden their understanding of customer's beyond their interaction with a digital product.

The Product Manager who wants to rethink product roadmaps based upon desired customer outcomes rather than features or outputs.

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

Quickly build a strong foundation for applying JTBD to brand, marketing, product, and service experiences.

📚 Master the principles and methods of Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD)

Understand how customers move from first thought to habitual use — and spot opportunities to influence them along the way.

🌀 Unlock the Wheel of Progress® and the Cycle of Customer Progress

Use powerful ChatGPT prompting scripts to reveal customer situational context, aspirations, functional jobs, emotional and social jobs, and desired outcomes.

🤖 Leverage ChatGPT to uncover deep customer insights

Pinpoint critical moments across the customer journey — from pains and gains to constraints, desires, and anxieties.

🛤️ Identify the 12 Elements of Customer Progress

Learn how pushes, pulls, habits, avoidances, and anxieties interact to drive (or block) customer decisions — and how to tip the balance.

⚡ Decode Switching Behavior and Motivation Forces

Design realistic personas by applying the Big Five Personality Traits, helping you simulate different customer mindsets for sharper research and messaging.

🧬 Create Synthetic Personas using the Big Five Traits

Adapt your websites, emails, and social media to match the way customers naturally think, talk, and decide — boosting engagement and conversions.

✍️ Achieve Language-Market Fit across your channels

You'll leave with practical tools and frameworks to uncover customer jobs, map progress, decode switching behavior, build synthetic personas, and sharpen your messaging for smarter growth. 🎯

🚀 Apply everything you learn directly to your own industry, product, or service.

🚀 Learn customer JTBD principles & methods through an interactive ChatGPT case study (30+ scripts) using The Wheel of Progress® framework.

JOHN GUSIFF

CX Strategist

Cohort 8

Cohort 9

The ChallengeYour days are filled with:🗓️ back-to-back meetings,🚀 sky-high customer or investor expectations,⏱️ wishes that your team could move faster sooner,🔥 wishes that you could move even faster and work on what really matters instead of fighting fires. You start each day with the best intentions, but somehow find yourself constantly reacting instead of leading.&nbsp;Sure, it would be nice to focus on your own goals, but you care about those other people (or at least some of them 😁). They’re colleagues and customers, family and friends... How can you collaborate with them responsively without forsaking your goals and becoming just a (re-)Actor in their story? 🎬 ✨ You wonder if AI can help, you wonder how other leaders are using AI to manage it all and manage their teams—but honestly, who's got the time to figure that out? ⏳ You have a constant, lurking anxiety about what’s falling through the cracks or not getting done, so you work faster. As you try to move faster, people fall short of your expectations and their potential. It causes friction and frustration (even if you hide it well). It's uncomfortable to call out, so you avoid giving feedback or mention it lightly, which makes the situation more uncomfortable. Eventually, you decide to give feedback. Sometimes it goes okay. Often, you try to move through and out of the conversation as quickly as possible because it feels so awkward. Growth and improvements rarely last. You take on more work yourself to get it done. The Solution (Evidence-based. Immediately applicable.)⏱️&nbsp;EVERYTHING YOU READ BELOW WILL BE ORIENTED TO IMMEDIATE APPLICATION DURING THE COURSE ⏱️What if you could shift from reacting to the constant inputs to creating what matters most and leading your team in that direction--everyday? This course will support you, step by step, in building your Operating System to make this shift. Fancy apps aren't enough. Nor are bursts of motivation. A sustainable Operating System has 3 features:🧰 Tools (simple enough to keep using, and amplified by AI)🔁&nbsp;Habits (the tools don't use themselves...except for some of the AI ones we'll build)🧠 Mindsets (you can "productively" spend your life responding to other people's messages and requests--or build something that matters) No, "perfection" isn't possible (or even desirable). But our days--and our results--completely shift when we focus our attention systematically instead of ad-hoc and reactively. And our conversations shift when we stop trying to fix people and start inspiring them to take action and grow. We teach you how to do this by using straightforward approaches that reliably transform defensiveness and friction into self-reflection, connection, and motivation to grow. You will start to look forward to feedback conversations because you will know how to use them as powerful tools for building trust and deepening connection. You will also explore your own mindsets and beliefs around feedback, identifying your own patterns around conflict avoidance, people-pleasing, and controlling behaviors. AI is woven throughout the course, including:1️⃣ building your own Custom GPTs2️⃣&nbsp;mastering your calendar3️⃣ using AI as a practice partner for difficult conversations and coaching skills4️⃣ helping your team use AI, and so much more! Once you've shifted the way you manage yourself and lead your team conversations, applying evidence-based approaches tested with 1000s of managers and amplified with AI, the whole game becomes fun again. Bonus:📝 You will also get 5 step-by-step facilitation guides for sharing and teaching your team members everything we cover in this course. This helps establish shared language and frameworks within your team/organization, and positions you as the leader of change. 📖&nbsp;You'll also get our 20-page Offsite Playbook with step-by-step guidance on how to design and facilitate unforgettable team and company gatherings. 🚀 And you'll get to do this while in a practice lab with other high-growth leaders.

Spend your days fighting fires or each other?

Tuesdays (+ 1 Thursday)

Weekly Office Hours

High-Growth ManagersReady to move out of IC mode, you want to be the inspiring leader people thank for the rest of their careers.

ExecutivesYou know there's a better way than back-to-back meetings everyday. To scale your impact, you know you must scale yourself first

Startup FoundersYou're expanding your focus from building a product to building a team. And to do so, you need the team to step up fast.

You'll have the Inner and Outer Game in place:<ul><li>A systematic set of habits, tools, and mindsets to define What Matters Most each day and week</li><li>You'll be using your emotions as signals for what needs to happen next</li><li>Your mind will be at ease</li></ul>

Clear Focus & Emotional Balance

Whether you're currently intimidated by AI, curious, or all-in, you will:<ul><li>know exactly how to leverage Claude and ChatGPT to improve your skills and help you prepare for key conversations</li><li>have your own CustomGPT to do a recurring management task FOR you</li></ul>

AI As Your Ally (including your own CustomGPT)

<ul><li>Next Actions template (simplest tool possible to stay organized)</li><li>Weekly Preview Checklist (define what matters most and who should do it)</li><li>Daily Defining Checklist</li></ul>

The Operating System (feel on top of your s***)

<ul><li>Know how to decide WHAT to delegate to increase your leverage</li><li>Know HOW to delegate (to a person or AI) in ways that build confidence and follow-through</li></ul>

The Leverage Framework

<ul><li>GAIN Template for how to structure feedback conversations that inspire response-ability, action, and growth</li><li>how to use AI to prepare and practice</li></ul>

GAIN Feedback Framework

<ul><li>GROW Template for coaching conversations</li><li>The key skill to coach effectively</li><li>Know the difference between a feedback and a coaching conversation</li><li>how to use AI to practice and get feedback on a coaching conversation</li></ul>

GROW Coaching Framework

What if you felt on top of everything?
What if your team were aligning and growing through every conversation with you?

Jack Cohen

Cohort 1

Cohort 2

Acquire the Skills to Run Customer JTBD Interviews with Confidence 🔍 Stop guessing why customers buy. Instead, learn how to uncover the real stories of progress that shape decisions. Most customer interviews fall short. Why? Because teams often:❌ Ask about features instead of struggles❌ Accept surface-level answers❌ Miss the non-obvious jobs that drive switching behavior This hands-on Customer JTBD Interviewing Skills course helps you break those habits and master a repeatable, end-to-end JTBD Research Process. You won’t just “learn the theory”—you’ll practice it live, using a real-world case study of your choice, and walk away with insights you can 💡 immediately apply to product, marketing, and sales decisions. What You’ll Learn (and Practice) 🧠 Formulate Better HypothesesStop chasing assumptions. Learn how to craft hypotheses that uncover motivations and struggles to make progress—not just product ideas. 🎯 Plan + Recruit with PrecisionDiscover overlooked contexts and triggers that make or break interviews. Recruit participants who reveal the full spectrum of jobs—including the hidden ones. 📝 Use Structured Storytelling PromptsMove beyond “Tell me about yourself.” Practice interview cards and prompts (life events, triggers, retell in detail, playback) that pull customers into narrative mode and reveal hidden forces. 🤝 Run Team-Based JTBD InterviewsSplit facilitator vs. listener roles to capture richer insights. Leverage The Wheel of Progress® framework to uncover drivers of behavior most teams overlook. 🌱 Spot Non-Obvious Jobs &amp; PatternsTrain your ear to hear what others miss: anxieties, habits, switching triggers, and compensating behaviors. Then synthesize them into clear demand clusters and opportunity areas. ✍️ Write Desire for Progress Statements That StickGo beyond personas. Create living, testable progress statements that capture what customers are really trying to achieve—and directly align with product, marketing, and sales. BONUS MATERIALS:- Get Customer JTBD Mural Board for conducting customer jobs-to-be-done research using The Wheel of Progress(R)- Get the 12 Elements of Progress listening framework for conducting team-based interviews- Get Customer JTBD Card Deck (62 digital cards) color-coded to match 12 Elements of Progress (additional $99 VALUE)

Aquire the skills and methods to perform Customer JTBD interviews yourself:

This course is designed for multiple Teams to each go through a Case Study of their collective choice from start to finish. Planning, conducting, and synthesizing findings across two to four customer JTBD interviews.

Four Cohort Sessions

Outside of LIVE cohort class sessions to provide guidance and direction, educate on methods, check-in, and review share outs by each team. An additional 6 to 8 hours will be required by your Teams to recruit participants, conduct the interviews, and synthesize findings.

The Case Study Itself

Leveraging the Maven community for posting announcements, reading materials, general discussion, and takeaways from the class.

The Marketer who wants to better tailor their messaging to the core jobs-to-be-done (aspirational, functional, emotional, social)

A Product Manager who wants to fall in love with problem (based upon jTBD research) prior to thinking about the solution.

The Designer or Researcher who wants to better understand constraints or behavioral-based barriers to customer progress.

The Product Trio (PM, UX, Tech) who want to learn how to improve the customer interview process as a team (multiple perspectives).

Learn a repeatable framework for planning and conducting customer interviews that actually uncover why people switch.

🎯 Master the full E2E JTBD Research Process

Step into the room as both the one asking questions and the one catching nuance — so you never miss hidden insights.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Practice both facilitator + listener roles

Learn how to plan, structure, and execute team-based interviews that eliminate bias and capture a richer picture of customer struggles.

🛠️ Run JTBD interviews as a team

Turn messy raw conversations into clear patterns of demand, progress, and opportunity.

🧠 Aggregate and synthesize insights across interviews

Learn to hear the anxieties, compensating behaviors, and hidden triggers buried in customer stories.

🔦 Spot non-obvious jobs competitors miss

Craft statements that capture real customer intent — language you can plug directly into product roadmaps, marketing copy, and sales enablement.

📝 Formulate Desire for Progress Statements that stick

No more overlooking context, stopping at surface answers, or asking solution-led questions.

🚀 Confidence in avoiding the top 5 interviewing mistakes

Upgrade your JTBD interviewing game.
Learn the full process— from planning to execution—practice interviews that uncover customer progress.

Lightning Lessons

Judgments Aren’t Feedback: Turn Traits Into Action