Conversations with leaders
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7 min read
Key findings
CCL ranks judging the person instead of the action as the most common feedback mistake.
Situation, Behaviour, Impact needs two further steps to change behaviour: a request and a dated check.
Feedback reaches personal motivation and ability, and leaves social and structural causes untouched.
Feedback worked only if someone can observe a different behaviour four weeks later.
If the sales team is paid on orders closed in the meeting, the structure rewards interrupting.
To give constructive feedback to an employee, describe the situation, the specific behaviour you saw and its impact on the work.
Then agree one change and a date to check it.
Feedback has worked when the behaviour is different four weeks later, and most managers never run that check.
Most guides to feedback treat it as a delivery skill, with advice to be specific, be timely and use a model.
Delivery matters, and a simple model covers most of it.
The case an HR partner is usually asked about is different, because the feedback was delivered well and nothing changed.
Constructive Feedback Defined
Constructive feedback is information about a specific behaviour and its effect, given so that the person can repeat it or change it.
Four conditions separate it from criticism.
It describes an action, not a trait
It names a time and place the person can recall
It states a consequence for the work or for others
It points to a change the person is able to make
The same conditions apply to positive feedback, which managers tend to give with adjectives and no detail.
Ten Common Mistakes
The leadership institute CCL asks managers on its programmes how many of them give good, consistent feedback, and usually one or two raise their hands.
The reasons they give are fear of saying something regrettable, of emotional reactions and of damage to the working relationship.
CCL traces those fears to ten mistakes.
Judging the person instead of the action
Vague praise nobody can repeat
Speaking for colleagues who are not present
Sandwiching criticism between two compliments
Exaggerating with always and never
Guessing at the motive behind the behaviour
Going on too long
Implying a threat to the person's future
Using sarcasm in place of the message
Phrasing the feedback as a question
CCL ranks the first as the most common, because "you were too abrasive" sends the recipient into self-defence before the sentence ends.
The sandwich fails because recipients soon work out the pattern, filter out the positive ends and wait for the criticism in the middle.
The SBI Feedback Model
CCL's Situation, Behaviour, Impact model has three steps.
Situation. Name when and where it happened, precisely enough for the person to recall it, such as "in Tuesday's client review, in the first ten minutes".
Behaviour. Describe what the person did, using verbs a camera could confirm.
"He was rude" is an impression, and "he spoke while the client was still speaking, twice" is behaviour.
CCL calls this step the most important and the one most often left out, because impressions come to mind faster than actions.
Impact. State the effect the behaviour had on you, on the work or on the people present.
The impact is the part a recipient finds hardest to dispute, because it reports the speaker's experience instead of a claim about the recipient.
SBI stops at the impact, and feedback that is meant to change behaviour needs two further steps.
Request. Say what you would like the person to do differently, or to keep doing, in one sentence.
Check. Agree when the two of you will look at whether it happened.
Constructive Feedback Examples
Three examples show the full sequence, each with the judgement version a manager might otherwise use.
A sales manager to an account manager.
The judgement version is "you dominate client meetings and need to listen more."
The constructive version reads like this.
"In Tuesday's review with the logistics client, you answered two questions before the operations director had finished asking them. She stopped raising issues after that, and we left without hearing her concern about the March delivery. In the next review, let her finish, and summarise her point before you answer. I will sit in on Thursday's call and we can compare notes afterwards."
A finance director to a team leader, reinforcing.
"In the board session, you answered the pricing question with three years of margin data and the discussion about the baseline stopped. That is the format I want for the April pack as well."
An HR partner to a plant manager.
"At Monday's shift briefing, you announced the rota change and left before anyone asked a question. Two supervisors raised grievances the same afternoon. At the next briefing, I would like you to stay for ten minutes of questions. I will check with the supervisors after it."
Each version takes longer to prepare than the judgement it replaces, which is the main reason managers default to judgement.
Anything in a review that surprises the employee shows that the feedback did not happen during the year.
Why Feedback Does Not Change Behaviour
A well-delivered message often changes nothing, and the usual response is to deliver it again, more firmly.
Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi reviewed a large body of feedback studies and found that feedback lowered later performance in a substantial share of them.
Kerry Patterson and his co-authors give a better diagnosis.
They argue that people keep a commitment only when they are both willing and able, and that each of those depends on three sources.
Personal. Whether the person wants to, and knows how
Social. Whether colleagues and the boss encourage it, and help
Structural. Whether rewards, systems and tools make it worth doing, and possible
Feedback reaches only the first of the three.
Take the account manager told to let clients finish.
If the sales team is paid on orders closed in the meeting, the structure rewards interrupting.
If the sales director interrupts clients in the same way, the social example points the other way.
If nobody has ever shown the account manager how to run a discovery conversation, the gap is ability, and a second round of feedback will not supply it.
Patterson's group call the habit of blaming personal motive alone the fundamental attribution error, and it is the error most managers make when feedback fails.
Before a manager repeats the feedback, the HR partner should ask which of the six sources is working against the change.
The Four-Week Test
A manager can tell whether feedback worked only if the change was stated in terms somebody can observe.
"Listen more" cannot be checked.
"Lets the client finish each question, and summarises it before answering" can be checked by anyone who sits in on the next three meetings.
Three questions set the test when the feedback is given.
What would we see in four weeks if this worked?
Who is in a position to see it?
On what date will we look?
The follow-up conversation then has a subject.
If the behaviour changed, the manager says so with the same precision as the original feedback, which is the reinforcement most people never receive.
If it did not change, the manager goes back to the six sources before saying anything else.
Feedback that is received well and changes nothing looks like success at the time, so the four-week date is the only way to tell the difference.
Feedback To Senior Leaders
The HR partner is often the only person who will give a senior leader feedback, and the leader may control the partner's next role.
The same structure works, with three adjustments.
Ask first whether the leader wants an observation on a named meeting
State the impact in business terms the leader already tracks
Give it privately, within two days, and only once
For example: "In the quarterly review, you set the budget number before the regional heads presented. None of them raised the supply risk that three had told me about the week before."
The partner then leaves the decision with the leader.
Raising the same point in later meetings makes the leader less likely to ask for the next observation.
Advising a leader you disagree with covers the harder case, where the feedback concerns a decision rather than a behaviour.
Timing And Setting
Feedback given within a few days is more accurate, because both people still remember the detail.
A month later the conversation turns into an argument about what happened.
Corrective feedback is given in private.
Where the event and the damage were public, the correction to the work can be public while the feedback to the person stays private.
An annual review is a poor place to deliver feedback and a good place to record it.
Anything in a review that surprises the employee shows that the feedback did not happen during the year.
An HR partner can test a completed cycle by asking a sample of employees whether anything in their review was new to them.
Receiving Feedback
How a manager receives feedback decides whether anyone offers it again.
Three responses discourage the next attempt.
Explaining the circumstances, which sounds like a rebuttal
Asking who else said it, which starts an investigation
Thanking the person in a tone that closes the subject
A question about the impact keeps the conversation open: "What did you see me do, and what happened next?"
Delegated Feedback
Managers regularly ask HR to deliver feedback for them.
When HR agrees, the employee learns that hard messages come from HR, and the manager keeps the relationship while losing the authority.
The better offer is to prepare the manager and rehearse the first two sentences aloud.
HR attends only where the meeting has formal consequences, as set out in preparing a manager for a difficult conversation.
Feedback on potential follows the same rules and carries more risk, as telling someone they are not on the high-potential list shows.
Where The Tools Sit
Trusted Talent Advisor includes a feedback preparation card with the five steps above and the four-week check.
Its evidence component sets out how to tell an observation from an inference before either reaches a review.
Related reading: redundancy conversation script.
Sources
1. Weitzel, S. R. Feedback That Works: How to Build and Deliver Your Message. Center for Creative Leadership.
2. Patterson, K., Grenny, J., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R. and Switzler, A. Crucial Accountability: Tools for Resolving Violated Expectations, Broken Commitments, and Bad Behavior. McGraw-Hill.
3. Kluger, A. N. and DeNisi, A. The Effects of Feedback Interventions on Performance: A Historical Review, a Meta-Analysis, and a Preliminary Feedback Intervention Theory. Psychological Bulletin.
From the system
Trusted Talent Advisor sets out the full method: seven components, 51 tools, The Talent Template Pack and The Prompt Library.
See the system
Questions this answers
How do you give constructive feedback to an employee?
Name the situation, describe the behaviour in terms a camera could confirm, and state its impact on the work. Then ask for one specific change and agree a date to check whether it happened, ideally within four weeks.
What is the SBI feedback model?
Situation, Behaviour, Impact is a feedback technique taught by the leadership institute CCL. The giver names when and where something happened, describes what the person did, and explains the effect it had, which removes judgement without softening the message.
Why does feedback not change behaviour?
Feedback reaches the person's own motivation and ability. It does nothing about colleagues who model the old habit, pay that rewards it or systems that make the new behaviour hard. Check those causes before repeating the feedback.
How do you follow up after giving feedback?
Agree at the time what you would see if the feedback worked, who can see it and on what date you will look. At that date, name the change precisely if it happened, or look for the cause if it did not.
How do you give feedback to a senior leader or your own manager?
Ask first whether they want an observation about a named meeting. Describe what they did and its effect in business terms they already track. Give it privately, within two days, once, and leave the decision with them.
What is an example of constructive feedback?
"In Tuesday's client review, you answered two questions before the client finished asking them, and she stopped raising issues. In the next review, let her finish and summarise her point before you answer. I will sit in on Thursday's call."
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