What Coaches and Mentors Can Learn from The Elements of Style
Tomás finished the follow-up email to his mentee after their session and read it back before sending: "I think it would be worth exploring whether there might be some value in potentially considering a different approach to how you're currently handling client conversations going forward." He knew exactly what he meant — stop apologizing for the price on every sales call — but somewhere between the thought and the sentence, it had dissolved into six clauses of hedging. He'd done this before, softening direct feedback until it barely qualified as feedback at all, telling himself he was being respectful of his mentee's autonomy. But he could picture her reading it and wondering what, specifically, she was supposed to do differently. He deleted the sentence and wrote what he actually meant: "Stop apologizing for your price on sales calls. Say the number and stop talking." It felt blunter. It was also, finally, usable.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Omit needless words
Tomás's original sentence used twenty-six words to avoid stating one clear instruction. Coaches often pad direct feedback with qualifiers — "it might be worth considering," "there could be value in" — because the padding feels like it protects the relationship, when it usually just protects the coach from the discomfort of being direct.
Write the instruction in its plainest form first — "stop apologizing for your price" — then decide, separately, how much warmth or context to add around it. The plain sentence should still be recognizable inside the final version, not buried by it.
Prefer the active voice and concrete language
"There's room for growth in how objections are handled" describes a general area without telling anyone what to actually do differently, and "confidence could be developed further" doesn't specify which behavior needs to change. Vague coaching language can feel encouraging while leaving the person with nothing concrete to practice.
Name the specific behavior and the specific moment — "when the client pushed back on price yesterday, you dropped your rate before they finished the sentence" — instead of describing a trait in the abstract. A concrete example from an actual moment is something a person can practice changing; a general trait is not.
Keep related words together and use consistent structure
A post-session recap jumps between three unrelated pieces of feedback in one paragraph, so the one thing that mattered most gets the same visual weight as a minor aside. Feedback given inconsistently — sometimes a list, sometimes a paragraph, sometimes buried in a compliment — makes it hard for a mentee to know what to prioritize.
Separate distinct pieces of feedback into their own lines or paragraphs, and use a consistent structure across sessions — situation, behavior, suggested change — so your mentee learns to expect and quickly parse the pattern.
Habits, not laws
None of this means coaching should abandon empathy for bluntness; how you deliver a specific observation still depends on the person and the moment. The point of practicing these habits is that specificity becomes available on demand, in the middle of a real conversation, rather than only showing up after a slow, careful redraft. A coach who has built the habit can still choose gentler language deliberately, while keeping the actual instruction intact underneath it.
Directness and diplomacy pull against each other constantly in coaching, since the plainest version of a hard truth can sound sharper than a hedged one. The answer isn't to choose bluntness over care — it's to separate the two jobs: get the observation exactly right first, in concrete terms, then adjust tone and delivery deliberately, rather than letting vagueness stand in for kindness.
Name one thing, honestly
Think of the last piece of feedback you gave someone you coach or mentor — could they repeat back to you, specifically, what behavior you wanted them to change?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Separate distinct pieces of feedback into their own lines or paragraphs, and use a consistent structure across sessions — situation, behavior, suggested change — so your mentee learns to expect and quickly parse the pattern.