How to Give Negative Feedback Using SBI — Script That Actually Lands

The Scene

You manage a 4-person design team. Priya is a mid-level designer you hired eight months ago. Her work is solid, but in the last two sprint reviews she has interrupted teammates mid-sentence, dismissed a junior designer's mockup as "obviously wrong," and sent a Slack message that read, "This is the third time I have flagged this. Are we going to do anything about it or not?"

Engineering has quietly started DM-ing their changes to you so they "don't have to deal with Priya." You have a 1:1 with her on Thursday at 3 pm.

You need to give feedback that is specific enough she cannot explain it away, grounded enough it does not feel like a personal attack, and short enough she can actually respond in the conversation instead of shutting down.

Generic feedback like "you have been a bit abrasive lately" will fail. She will ask for an example, you will grope for one, and she will leave thinking the complaint came from somewhere else. You need SBI.

SBI Recap (30 seconds)

Situation-Behavior-Impact was published by the Center for Creative Leadership in their 2006 booklet Feedback That Works. Three pieces, in this exact order:

| Component | What It Answers | Rule | |---|---|---| | Situation | When and where did it happen? | One specific meeting, one specific Slack thread — not "last week sometimes." | | Behavior | What did the person actually do or say? | Observable actions only — no motives, no adjectives, no "you always." | | Impact | What was the effect? | Describe the effect on you, the team, or the work — not a moral judgment. |

SBI works because all three pieces are hard to dispute. The recipient cannot argue the facts of the meeting. They cannot argue what came out of their mouth. And the impact is your experience, which is not up for debate.

The 4-Round Script

Round 1: Open + First SBI

You: "Thanks for making time. I want to share two specific moments from the last two weeks so we can talk about how they are landing with the team.

In Tuesday's sprint review — that is the Situation — when Alex presented his onboarding flow mockup, you said 'that is obviously wrong, the CTA cannot go there.' That is the Behavior.

The Impact was that Alex stopped presenting halfway, and two engineers DM-ed me later asking if he was okay. We lost the actual design discussion for that mockup."

Then pause. Do not over-explain. Do not apologize for giving the feedback.

Round 2: She Responds + Second SBI

Priya: "I mean, the CTA placement really was wrong. I was trying to save us a whole sprint of rework."

You: "I hear that the placement is worth pushing back on, and I want you pushing back on design choices. The issue is the delivery, not the opinion.

Second example — last Friday, in the #design-reviews Slack channel, you wrote 'This is the third time I have flagged this. Are we going to do anything about it or not?' in response to Sam.

The impact there is that Sam came to me on Monday asking whether he is on a PIP, because the tone read as a formal escalation. He was not the right person to ask that question — the component library fix he had owned slipped because the engineer rotated off."

Round 3: Handle the Predictable Pushback

Priya: "So I am supposed to just let bad work ship because I might hurt someone's feelings?"

You: "No. I want your quality bar on the team. What I am asking is that the Behavior — the exact words — do not leave the other person unable to respond. 'That is obviously wrong' ends the conversation. 'I am worried about CTA placement because of the scan pattern, can we talk through it?' keeps it going and still gets the bad placement fixed.

Same standard, different words. The output is the one you wanted anyway."

Round 4: Close With One Concrete Ask

You: "For the next two weeks, here is what I am asking. Before you push back in a review, state what you are reacting to — 'I am reacting to the CTA placement' — then ask a question instead of making a verdict. If you are not sure how to phrase something in Slack, send it to me first. I will turn it around in under an hour.

I want to talk again in our 1:1 two weeks from now and see if this moved. Does that sound workable?"

Common Reactions and How to Respond

| What Priya Says | What You Say | |---|---| | "You should have told me sooner." | "Fair. I am telling you now. This is the pattern I want us to change going forward, not a grudge list." | | "Who complained about me?" | "The feedback is from me, based on what I saw directly. The specific examples I just walked you through were things I witnessed, not things reported to me." | | "I am just direct. That is a communication style." | "Direct is fine. The two examples I gave were not direct — they were verdicts that ended the other person's turn. We can keep the directness and drop the verdicts." | | "So I should water everything down." | "No — the opposite. Directness is fine, but directness without a 'because' reads as dismissal. Add the 'because' and you keep the signal." | | Long silence. | Wait. Do not fill it. Silence after SBI usually means the person is doing the math. If it goes past 10 seconds: "Take a minute. I can wait." |

Why SBI Beats "You Have Been Abrasive"

| Feedback Approach | How Recipient Hears It | Chance of Behavior Change | |---|---|---| | "You have been abrasive lately" | Character attack, no action to take | Low | | "Try to be more collaborative" | Vague, unmeasurable | Low | | "People are complaining about you" | Paranoia ("who?"), no facts | Very low | | SBI with two specific examples + one ask | Testable, bounded, pattern-focused | High |

The point of SBI is not to be nicer. It is to be specific enough that the person cannot route around the feedback, and to give them something concrete to change.

Try It With Your Situation

The dialogue above is for a design manager and Priya. Your version is a sales lead and a rep, an engineering manager and a senior IC, or a founder and a co-founder. The Situation, Behavior, and Impact are yours — and the Round 3 pushback will be different.

Generating the script by hand takes 40 minutes, and most people bail at the Impact step because naming the actual effect on the team feels awkward. ConvoPrep generates a full SBI script in under a minute based on your specific situation, then lets you role-play with an AI that plays your direct report — complete with the three most likely pushbacks.

If you freeze on Round 3, the AI tells you what landed and what did not. By the time you sit down Thursday at 3 pm, you have already had this conversation twice.

Try ConvoPrep free — convoprep.co. Get your SBI script and practice the pushback in under 5 minutes.

FAQ

How do I give negative feedback using SBI without sounding like a robot?

Write the Situation and Behavior as one continuous sentence ("In Tuesday's sprint review, when Alex presented his mockup, you said…"), not three labeled bullets. The recipient should hear a concrete memory replay, not a form being filled out. The structure is for you, not for them.

What if I cannot remember the exact words they said?

Do not invent a quote. Say what you remember: "You said something that landed as a verdict on Alex's mockup." Then give the Impact. If they push back on the quote, offer to check the recording or Slack log. Never defend a quote you are not sure of.

Should I give SBI feedback in writing first or in a 1:1?

1:1 first, follow-up in writing. SBI over Slack reads like an ambush. 1:1 with a short written summary after gives the person a chance to respond live and a document to reread. Do not send the written version first — it changes the conversation from a dialogue to a defense.

How many SBI examples should I bring to one conversation?

Two, max three. One example can be dismissed as an outlier. Four examples read as a prepared case for termination. Two examples establish a pattern without tipping into "you have been building a file on me."