Urania Gibbs

Professional woman looking at laptop expressing a look of frustration Maybe it was a meeting where something shifted — a comment that landed wrong, a glance exchanged across the table, a decision made about you that you weren’t in the room for. Maybe it was an email you read three times because something about it didn’t sit right, but you couldn’t say what. Maybe it was the slow accumulation of small things — being talked over, being skipped on the project, being told you were “too much” for...

How to Respond to a Performance Issue Without Prior Warning One of the most destabilizing workplace experiences is being told there is a performance issue when you have not had prior coaching, clear feedback, or documented concerns. For many people, that moment creates immediate confusion. You start replaying conversations, wondering what you missed, and trying to figure out whether this came out of nowhere or whether there were signs you did not fully read at the time. The emotional impact...

Getting called into an HR meeting without much context can trigger panic fast. For many employees, the mind goes straight to worst-case scenarios: Am I being written up? Is this about a complaint? Am I in trouble? Is this leading to termination? That reaction is understandable. But it is also exactly why this moment matters. When people feel blindsided, they often make one of two mistakes. They either start talking too quickly and overexplain before they understand what the meeting is...