You gave your report feedback last week and nothing changed. You told your peer their slide deck needed work and got a defensive response. You gave your manager upward feedback and they thanked you politely and then did nothing.
It's almost never because the feedback was wrong. It's because it was vague, or general, or evaluative, or some combination. There's a specific three-part structure that fixes this, and it takes under a minute to deliver.
The SBI framework
SBI stands for Situation, Behavior, Impact. It's used at the Center for Creative Leadership, at Google, and at half the Fortune 500 because it happens to be the shortest form of feedback that actually changes behavior.
Three sentences, in this order:
- Situation. The specific moment. Not "lately" or "in general" — a single meeting, a single message, a single decision.
- Behavior. What the person did. Observable, not inferred. No adjectives about their character.
- Impact. What happened as a result. The concrete consequence on you, the team, the work, or the customer.
That's it. Here's what it sounds like in practice.
Positive feedback
"In yesterday's pricing review, when Maria pushed back on the midmarket tier, you paused for a full beat before answering and said you'd come back after you'd run the numbers. Sarah mentioned afterward that she felt heard for the first time in a quarter — it made the whole team drop the defensiveness we usually carry into that meeting."
Parse it:
- Situation: yesterday's pricing review, the moment Maria pushed back.
- Behavior: paused, then committed to come back with numbers.
- Impact: Sarah felt heard, team relaxed.
No "great job!" No "you're such a good leader." Nothing for the brain to discount as flattery. Just a specific thing that happened and what it caused.
Developmental feedback
"In Tuesday's planning meeting, when Daniel brought up the scope creep question, you cut him off twice to answer for him. Daniel stopped contributing for the rest of the session, and I noticed two other engineers also went quiet. I think the team read it as a signal not to surface risk."
Parse it:
- Situation: Tuesday's planning meeting, Daniel's scope question.
- Behavior: cut him off twice, answered for him.
- Impact: Daniel stopped contributing, others went quiet.
No "you're a bad listener." No "you should be more inclusive." Nothing to argue with because nothing is opinion. It's a chain of facts plus an observed consequence.
Why the order matters
The Situation has to come first because it tethers everything else to reality. The moment you lead with Behavior — "you cut people off" — you've already moved into a character claim. Your listener's brain starts searching for counter-examples and the feedback fails before the Impact lands.
Situation first → Behavior second → Impact last is the only order that keeps the feedback in the world of facts long enough for the listener to actually hear the consequence.
The most common mistake
People try to combine SBI with the "sandwich" — positive, negative, positive. Don't. The sandwich is well-meaning and structurally broken. Listeners learn to brace for the middle bite, which means they also discount the two slices of bread. If you have two things to say, say them in two separate conversations.
The one rule to protect
No evaluative adjectives anywhere. No "sloppy," "unprofessional," "rude," "aggressive," "defensive." These are inferences about the person. SBI is a discipline about staying on the observable side of the line — what happened, not what it means about who they are.
If you catch yourself using an adjective, rewrite it as a behavior. "You were defensive" becomes "You crossed your arms and shortened your answers to one word." "You were aggressive" becomes "You raised your voice and interrupted twice." Specificity disarms.
When to use it
SBI is overkill for small daily course-corrections ("hey, can you loop Sarah in next time?"). It's the right tool when:
- You need to raise a pattern without sounding like you're making a character attack.
- You're giving formal performance feedback.
- You're giving upward feedback and want to be taken seriously.
- The relationship is tense and you want to keep things on firm factual ground.
The 60-second version
Write your feedback as one paragraph. Read it. Check: does the first sentence name a specific moment? Does the second sentence contain only observable actions? Does the third sentence describe a concrete consequence? If all three answers are yes, you can deliver it and reasonably expect change. If any answer is no, you're going to have a conversation instead of a change in behavior.
Three sentences. One minute. More change than a 20-minute "hey, let's talk" rant ever produced.