Five with Fry

"People are saying you're too assertive." Okay. Who? What happened? What exactly did I do? "Well, I can't really give you specifics. I just wanted you to know." And now what are you supposed to do with that? In this episode of Five with Fry, we're talking about trash feedback. The vague, contradictory, secondhand criticism that leaves you trying to figure out wha...

"I just need you to tighten up." Sounds like a relatively minor conversation, right? Something you need to work on, but nothing to lose sleep over. Except your manager has documented the problem, you've already discussed it three times, and the next step could be a formal performance improvement plan. You just don't know that part yet. In this episode of Five with Fry, I'm...

You can disagree with feedback and still receive it well. That sounds obvious until you’re sitting across from someone who has just told you something about yourself that you don’t think is fair, accurate, or complete. Suddenly, asking a question can look like pushback. Adding context can get labeled defensiveness. And sometimes you’re not even sure which one you’re doing. In this episode of Five...

“You need more executive presence.” Okay. What does that actually mean? A lot of workplace feedback sounds specific until you’re the person who has to do something with it. Be more strategic. Be less emotional. Be a better team player. Those may describe someone’s impression of you, but they don’t tell you what happened or what needs to change. And that matters, because people make real decisions...

You thought you were doing fine. Your manager had mentioned a few things during the year, but nothing sounded that serious. Then your performance review lands, and suddenly those same issues are being described as a pattern. So…when did this become a problem? This week, we’re talking about what happens when the feedback an employee heard all year does not match what eventually shows up in writing....

You can say “thank you for the feedback,” leave the meeting, and still have no idea what your boss actually meant. Was that a small thing they want you to work on? A bigger performance concern? Something that could affect the promotion you’ve been talking about? This week, we’re looking at feedback from the employee side of the conversation and what happens when you don’t have enough information t...

You can leave a feedback conversation thinking, “I was very clear,” while the other person leaves wondering, “Am I in trouble?” That gap matters. Managers often have information employees don’t: how serious an issue is, whether it’s affecting future opportunities, whether this is coaching or something more formal, and what needs to happen next. When that context stays in the manager’s head, employ...

The feedback sandwich sounds polite. It can also make it nearly impossible to tell what the actual feedback was. We pile on praise, reassurance, explanations, and “this really isn’t a big deal” until the thing the person actually needs to hear gets buried somewhere in the middle. Then we leave the conversation thinking we gave clear feedback and wonder why nothing changes. But feedback at work is...

Most of us organize our adult lives around never being bad at something in public. Our kids do it every week. They miss the serve with the gym watching. They get subbed out in front of their friends. They get corrected out loud and have to walk back on and try the thing they just failed at. That's not the downside of youth sports. It's the lesson, and it's teaching itself at an age...

There's a version of the young coach in your kid's gym that you've already written off. You clocked the age, the thin résumé, the decision you'd never have made, and you decided. Before a single practice, sometimes. I coached club at 21. I got handed a team I was never supposed to run, didn't know brackets, missed things a seasoned coach never would. The only reason I last...

Your kid says they're done, and they say it without drama. No meltdown, no blowup, just a decision. They walk away lighter. And you're the one left standing there running the numbers on everything you put in. I've watched this from the coach side for years, and the part that surprises parents most isn't losing the games. It's losing the people. Somewhere in there, your kid...

Your kid comes off the court and says the coach is picking on them again. Always calling them out, never the other kids. And before they've finished the sentence, you're already halfway to a decision about what you're going to do about it. I get why. You hear the hurt in their voice, and you want to protect them. But most of the time, that thing your kid is calling out isn't be...

Your kid gets benched. Your chest goes tight. And somewhere between the sideline and the parking lot, a message starts writing itself in your head — the one that has to be sent. This is the episode where the book is finally out, and it's the exact moment I built the book for. Because I've watched this play out from the other side of the bench for fifteen years: a parent who loves their k...

You've probably said some version of it. "I didn't pay all this money for you to play like that." Maybe out loud, maybe in your head on the drive home, maybe half-joking. This episode is about where that sentence actually lands. It doesn't land on the coach. It doesn't land on the club. It lands on your kid,  who can't do anything with it except start believing t...

Playing time is where I've watched more parents come undone than almost anything else. Not because they're difficult people, but because the rotation pokes at something real. Fairness. Pride. The fear sitting under all of it. And the first pivot I hear, almost every time, is some version of "it's not fair." Here's the thing I've learned from the other side of the...

Your kid gets in the car and asks you the question. What am I doing wrong? And most of us answer it. We say you're too slow, or you need to get lower, or the coach has favorites and there's nothing you can do. We say something. Because they asked, and they're upset, and silence feels like we don't care. The reality? A lot of us have no business answering that question. We'...

There's a version of youth sports parenting where the job feels simple: get them there, feed them, cheer, repeat. And then something goes sideways — the shoe won't tie, the meal's a disaster, a teammate thing has them stewing in the back seat — and a reflex kicks in before you've decided anything. I'll handle it. You're faster. You can see the fix. So you take it. Thi...

Most of what a sports parent does has nothing to do with sports. It's gear. It's scheduling. It's "did you remember your cleats" texted at 6:45 in the morning. Parents get so good at the doing that the harder question almost never gets asked: who do you actually want to be in this season of your kid's life? That question is what this episode, and this season, is built...

A retreat can feel productive while it is happening. People talk more honestly. The tension lowers. The team gets a little space from the pressure of the regular schedule. But if leaders have not named the real problem before the agenda is built, the team usually comes back to the same habits on Monday. Jen closes this season by walking through what actually makes a retreat useful: clear purpose,...

A retreat can give people enough space to finally say the thing out loud. That matters. But naming the conflict is not the same as resolving it. In this episode, Jen talks about what happens when teams come back from a retreat with good conversations, more connection, maybe even more honesty, but no real plan for what changes next. The same conflict shows back up because stress shows back up. Urge...

A retreat can’t carry everything leadership has been avoiding. When leaders wait until everyone is in the room to finally name the real issues, the retreat starts from defense instead of honesty. People are surprised. They get guarded. And now the thing that should have been part of an ongoing conversation becomes the thing everyone has to manage for the next two days. This episode is about the co...

Calling a retreat a safe space is only the beginning. If leaders have not decided what accountability looks like inside that space, people are being asked to trust a promise that may not hold once someone gets uncomfortable. That matters, because hard conversations do not just create honesty. They can also create defensiveness, raised voices, table-slapping, cursing, dismissal, and emotional react...

Most retreats promise alignment and come-home energy, yet teams often return to the same old friction by Monday. We open the curtain on why that happens and make a bold case: conflict isn’t a problem to avoid at an offsite, it’s the work that makes the investment pay off. When you treat conflict as data, you expose misalignment, clarify expectations, and rebuild trust in a way that rah-rah moments...

You can learn a lot about a team from the second after somebody says the thing everybody has been avoiding. That pause tells the truth fast. Somebody usually tries to rescue the room, smooth it over, or move on before anyone has to sit in what just got exposed. That is the conversation I got into here. Not whether conflict belongs at a retreat. Whether the room can actually hold tension long enoug...

You can build a retreat around laughter, bonding, and a packed schedule and still come back to the exact same tension. That is the problem Jen names here. When teams keep asking how to make the retreat fun before they name what is actually off, fun starts doing work it was never built to do. Jen gets into the difference between feeling good together and being able to work well together. Those are...