Feedback and clarity·Say It Better reference library

The SBI Feedback Model

Situation, Behaviour, Impact — describing what happened instead of judging who someone is.

Originator: Center for Creative Leadership, 2000

Documented by Say It Better from published sources. SBI is a CCL model, not ours.

01

What it is

SBI is a three-part structure for giving feedback: describe the Situation, name the specific Behaviour you observed, and state the Impact it had.

The model's discipline is in the middle part. Behaviour has to be something a camera would have recorded. Raised your voice is behaviour. Was aggressive is a judgement. Interrupted the client mid-sentence is behaviour. Was disrespectful is a judgement. Almost all the value of SBI is in refusing to let a judgement into the second slot.

CCL has since extended the model to SBI-I, which adds Intent — checking what the person was trying to achieve, which is frequently not the same thing as the effect they had. The extension exists because impact alone can leave someone defensive when their intent was reasonable, and the conversation then becomes about character rather than about what happened.

02

Where it comes from

SBI was developed and published by the Center for Creative Leadership, a nonprofit leadership education and research organisation founded in 1970 and based in Greensboro, North Carolina. CCL runs leadership development programmes and publishes research on management practice.

The model is set out in Sloan R. Weitzel's Feedback That Works: How to Build and Deliver Your Message, published by CCL in 2000, and it remains one of CCL's core teaching tools — they publish it under their own name and it is a registered trademark of the organisation.

Say It Better uses SBI as the basis for our feedback guidance because it is well documented and widely taught. It is not our model and we make no claim to it.

03

What problem it addresses

Most feedback fails for one of two reasons, and they are opposites.

The first is vagueness. You need to be more proactive, or you should show more ownership, tells the person nothing about what to do differently. They cannot act on it, so they either do nothing or they guess, and the guessing usually misses.

The second is personalisation. You are not a team player is a statement about identity. The other person's only available response is to defend their identity — by listing counter-examples, by explaining their intentions, by going quiet and remembering it. The actual behaviour never gets discussed.

SBI addresses both by making the middle slot narrow. There is no room for a character claim, and there is nothing vague enough to be unactionable. It also handles praise: the same structure is what makes positive feedback specific enough to be repeated, rather than a general warmth the person cannot reproduce.

04

When to use it

  • Giving developmental feedback to a colleague or direct report.
  • Praising specifically, so the behaviour is recognisable and repeatable.
  • Raising a behaviour problem where you want to avoid a fight about character.
  • Preparing for a performance review or a difficult one-to-one.
  • Coaching someone else on how to give feedback — the structure is teachable in five minutes.
  • When you have noticed a pattern and want to raise it without overstating it.
05

When not to use it

  • When the issue is a formal policy breach that needs to go through a process, not a conversation.
  • When you have no observed behaviour to point to. I have heard you are difficult to work with has no situation and no behaviour. Find the observation or do not raise it.
  • When the other person is in acute distress and the priority is support. Feedback can wait an hour; it rarely waits well when delivered to someone who is falling apart.
  • As a script for delivering a decision you have already made. That is an announcement, and dressing it as feedback is worse than being direct.
  • In public. Feedback with an audience is not feedback; it is a performance for the audience.
06

Step by step

  1. 1

    Situation

    When and where, specifically and recently. In yesterday's client call. Not lately, and not generally — a stretched situation turns SBI back into a character complaint.

  2. 2

    Behaviour

    What they actually did or said, observable, with no adjectives about character. You cut in while the client was mid-sentence. If you cannot film it, it is not behaviour.

  3. 3

    Impact

    The effect it had — on you, on the work, or on others. The client stopped and did not raise her second question. Prefer an effect they can verify over your emotional reaction alone.

  4. 4

    Pause

    Stop after the impact. Let them respond before you move to the fix. Skipping this is the most common way a good SBI becomes a lecture.

  5. 5

    Explore

    Ask for their read. What was going on for you there? You will often learn something that changes the conversation — a competing priority, a misunderstanding, a bad week.

  6. 6

    Agree the next step

    A specific behaviour to try next time, not an intention. Next time, hold the point until she has finished. General commitments do not survive contact with the next meeting.

  7. 7

    Check intent (the SBI-I extension)

    Ask what they were trying to achieve. Intent and impact are frequently different, and naming that difference explicitly is what stops the conversation becoming a dispute about motives.

07

Real-world examples

Praising something you want repeated.

In Tuesday's review, you walked the group through the timeline before the numbers. It meant everyone was following before the detail landed. The praise is specific enough that they know exactly what to do again.

A colleague dismissed someone's work in front of the team.

In stand-up this morning, you told Priya her part was not really a priority. She went quiet for the rest of the call and has not posted an update since. Note that the impact is an observation about her behaviour, not a claim about how you felt.

You realise you have been doing all the talking in one-to-ones.

In the last two one-to-ones, I have done most of the talking. I do not think I am getting a clear picture of what is blocking you. SBI works on yourself, and modelling it makes it much easier to receive.

A pattern rather than a single event.

In the last three project updates, the figures have arrived the day after the deadline. It means the rest of us are working from the previous week's numbers. Three specific instances is still SBI. Always and never is not.

08

Example scripts

When [situation], you [behaviour]. The impact was [impact].

Can I give you some feedback? In this morning's call...

That is what I observed — what is your read on it?

What would you like to do differently next time?

I want to be specific about something you did well...

What were you aiming for there? I want to check it against how it landed.

These lines show the shape of the pattern. They are examples to adapt, not scripts to repeat word for word.

09

Common mistakes

Putting an adjective in the behaviour slot

You were aggressive is a judgement. You raised your voice is a behaviour. The whole model turns on this distinction, and it is the easiest one to lose.

Stretching the situation

Lately or in general converts a specific observation into a pattern claim you probably cannot evidence, and it invites a dispute about the record.

Delivering impact as a verdict

And it was really unprofessional is an evaluation, not an impact. The impact should be a consequence the other person can see.

Skipping the pause

Going straight from impact to advice means you never hear their account. You may be giving feedback on something that did not happen the way you think.

Using it only for negative feedback

When SBI is reserved for criticism, the opening line becomes a warning. Using it for praise as well keeps it neutral.

Saving it up

Feedback delivered three months after the event has lost its situation and its usefulness. The model depends on recency.

10

Limitations and considerations

  • SBI describes behaviour, not cause. It tells you what happened and says nothing about why, which needs a separate conversation.
  • In emotionally charged situations a three-part formula can feel clinical, and the structure can get in the way of the warmth the moment needed.
  • It depends entirely on you having actually observed the behaviour. Second-hand feedback breaks the model at the first step.
  • Impact statements land best when they describe consequences the other person can verify rather than your emotional reaction alone, which some practitioners argue makes the standard SBI formulation weaker than it first appears.
  • CCL's own SBI-I extension exists because impact alone can leave someone defensive when their intent was good — a tacit acknowledgement that the three-part version is incomplete.
  • It is a delivery structure, not a relationship. Feedback given only in this format, never in ordinary conversation, reads as managed.
12

Sources and further reading

These are the published works behind this page. Where a framework has a named originator, that person or organisation is credited above.

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