A practice round
The Feedback Dilemma
A short practice round on giving hard feedback with the SBI model. You're the manager. Every choice changes how Alex responds.
The setup. Alex has missed two deadlines, the Henderson brief and Tuesday's report. You have ten minutes before your next meeting. Alex sits down, guarded.
What you'll practise
- 1Open with SBI, then stop
- 2Lead with a real question
- 3Find the cause, split the blame fairly
- 4Close on a concrete commitment
Before you start
SBI keeps feedback about behaviour, not character
Situation. Name the specific moment. "In the last fortnight..."
Behaviour. What you observed, not what you concluded. "...the Henderson brief and Tuesday's report came in late..." Never "...you've been sloppy."
Impact. The concrete effect. "...so the client saw a draft that wasn't ready."
Then stop talking. SBI opens the conversation. Curiosity earns the truth.
Decision 1 of 4
The opener
Select one option to see how Alex responds.
Feedback:
Your result
How that conversation went
What happened, decision by decision
Here is each call you made, next to the move that tends to work best. No trick answers. Just what gives you the best shot at a useful conversation.
See the model answer for every decision
The order is the lesson: be specific, get curious, diagnose and split the blame, then commit, and repair the moment it wobbles. Skip a step and the next gets harder. True with Alex, true in your next real 1:1.
Share or save your result
The cheat sheet is one page: five steps (open with SBI then stop, lead with a real question, repair if it wobbles, find the cause and split it, close concrete) plus three gut-check questions.
Built by The Human Co. We help teams have the conversations they keep putting off. If you want something like this for your managers, come and say hello.
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