The SBI framework for the conversations your managers keep avoiding
Situation-Behaviour-Impact. Three steps that turn the conversation your managers dread into one they can actually have — without it spiralling, softening into nothing, or blowing up.
The CIPD’s 2025 commentary on line-manager capability found that the single most-avoided management task is giving performance feedback to an under-performing direct report. More avoided than hiring, firing, or restructuring. That’s what this guide fixes. CIPD 2025
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The rest of the guide walks through the SBI framework in detail, gives you scripts for openers and closers, and walks through an anonymised scenario from a real organisation — with the before-and-after conversations side by side.
SBI: three boxes that hold the whole conversation
SBI — Situation, Behaviour, Impact — is a feedback model developed by the Center for Creative Leadership. It’s the single most reliable structure we’ve seen for the conversations managers find hardest: performance concerns, behavioural issues, under-delivery, tone, conduct. It works because it forces observational language and removes interpretation — which is where 90% of these conversations go wrong.
When and where it happened
Anchor the feedback to a specific moment — not a pattern, not a tendency. If it’s happened more than once, pick the clearest example. Specificity is what makes the conversation defensible.
What you observed — not interpreted
Describe what a video camera would have captured. No “you were dismissive”. No “you didn’t seem engaged”. Only: what they said, what they did, tone that can be quoted.
What that caused — on you, the team, the work
Describe the effect, not your emotional response to it. Focus on observable consequences: the decision didn’t get made, the person stopped contributing, the client noticed, the deadline slipped.
The classic praise-criticism-praise sandwich softens the signal, dilutes the actual point, and trains people to hear the compliments as a warning sign. SBI is direct, short, and observational — which is what every adult receiving difficult feedback actually wants.
Before the conversation: prepare only the SBI, nothing else
Don’t script the whole conversation. Don’t plan what they might say and rehearse your counters. Write down one Situation, one Behaviour, one Impact on a sticky note and walk into the room with only that.
- If you can’t write a specific Behaviour, you’re not ready. Go and observe one more time. Vague feedback about “attitude” or “approach” without anchored behaviour is what tribunals are made of.
- Book the time deliberately. Not at the end of a 1:1. Not over coffee. A specific 20-minute slot, in your calendar as “1:1 with [name]” so they’re not ambushed and you’re not rushed.
- Signal the weight. If it’s serious, say so in the invite: “I’d like to talk through some feedback on yesterday’s meeting.” Surprise feedback is what people tell HR about.
In the conversation: deliver SBI, then stop talking
The biggest mistake managers make in the first minute is delivering their SBI and then filling the silence. Don’t. Land it, then stop. The other person’s response is where the useful conversation actually starts.
- Opener: “There’s something I want to flag from yesterday. I’d like to share what I noticed, then hear your take.”
- Deliver the SBI — just the three sentences. About 20 seconds total. Use past tense throughout. No “you always”, no “you never”, no “people have been saying”.
- Then ask: “How did that feel from your side?” or “What was going on there for you?” Both invite reflection without accusation.
- Listen properly. Don’t defend. Don’t explain why the impact hurt more because of the context. Just take in the response for as long as it takes.
- Closer: “What do we want to do differently next time?” — puts the next step in their hands, not yours.
Write the SBI and the agreed next step in an email to yourself within 24 hours. If the conversation ever escalates to a formal process, your documentation is what HR will rely on. Same-day notes are always worth more than week-later recollections.
Worked scenario: the same conversation, before and after
Here’s an anonymised example from a UK client. Same manager, same direct report, same underlying issue. Below is how the conversation went the first time — and how it went six months later, after the manager had been trained on SBI.
Vague, interpretive, and pattern-based
“Look, I need to talk to you about your attitude in meetings. You’ve been coming across as a bit dismissive lately. I don’t want to single you out, but a few people have mentioned it. It’s just not the kind of energy we need on this team right now.”
The direct report heard: “People are complaining about me. My manager is attacking my character, not my behaviour. This isn’t safe to engage with.”
Result: defensive response, relationship damaged for months, no behavioural change.
Specific, observational, and short
“In yesterday’s project stand-up, when Priya raised the timeline concern, you interrupted and said ‘we’ve already decided that’, then looked at your laptop for the next ten minutes. The team stopped raising concerns for the rest of the meeting, and we finished without agreeing next steps on the timeline. How did that feel from your side?”
The direct report heard: “One specific moment. One observable behaviour. One real consequence. My manager wants to understand what was going on, not judge me.”
Result: an actual conversation about workload and meeting pressure. Behaviour change within a fortnight.
Four traps even well-trained managers fall into
SBI is simple. Applying it under pressure, in front of a direct report who is upset or defensive, is not. These are the four slips we see most often.
Smuggling interpretation into the Behaviour
“You were dismissive” is interpretation. “You interrupted and said ‘we’ve already decided that’” is behaviour. If a second person couldn’t have written the same sentence watching the same moment, you’re interpreting — and the other person will (correctly) argue the interpretation.
Stacking multiple SBIs into one conversation
Three recent moments, all on the table at once, is not a conversation — it’s an ambush. Bring one. Handle it. If more come up naturally, handle them. Don’t walk in with a list.
Not landing the Impact
Managers often deliver the Situation and the Behaviour cleanly then trail off. The Impact is the hardest part to say out loud but it’s the only bit that makes the feedback actionable. No Impact, no reason to change.
What works instead
One SBI, delivered cleanly in under 30 seconds, then silence. Then listen. Then ask what changes next time. Practise it twice before every real use — with a peer, an HR partner, or even into your phone. Stumbling through it in front of the actual person is where it falls apart.
Most line managers have never had a feedback conversation they would be willing to record and play back. SBI is the framework that changes that — the conversations become ones you’d be proud to have on tape. Centre for Creative Leadership
A four-week plan for your manager layer
Reading about SBI doesn’t install the skill. Here’s the shape of a four-week rollout that does.
Test SBI in a real conversation this week
Pick one manager who trusts you — ideally a senior one. Coach them through one SBI before a real 1:1 this week. Debrief with them the same day. This is your proof-of-concept internally.
Full-day session for all people managers
Role-play-heavy. Real scenarios from your organisation. No slide-deck-based webinars. Practising the conversation with peer feedback is where the skill is actually built.
Run the session — cohorts of 10–12
Small enough for everyone to practise out loud. Large enough that managers learn from each other’s scenarios as much as their own.
SBI becomes a shared vocabulary
Reference it in your leadership forum, your 1:1 template, your onboarding for new managers. When it’s normal to say “let me give you an SBI on that” in your culture, the conversations stop being difficult.
Train your managers to run this conversation in a safe room first
Our Difficult Conversations session is role-play-heavy and built around SBI. Half a day, cohorts of 10–12, onsite or online. Your managers rehearse the hard chats with peers, get honest feedback, and walk out able to run the real one with a real person.
Book a 15-minute callSee the Difficult Conversations course in detail