workplace_feedback_delivery v1.0.0

---

name: workplace_feedback_delivery description: Give feedback at work that lands: specific observations over labels, timing, a conversation structure, written follow-up, and practice scenarios. Use when preparing for a feedback conversation, turning a vague complaint into a deliverable observation, giving peer, upward, or positive feedback, writing a follow-up note, or rehearsing with scored practice.

---

Workplace Feedback Delivery

Purpose

Turn a judgment about a person into a conversation about a specific piece of work, so the other person can hear it, answer it, and act on it.

The core tool is SBI, from the Center for Creative Leadership: Situation, Behavior, Impact. Name the specific situation, describe the observable behavior, state the impact. This skill adds two steps the original model leaves to the conversation: ask about intent and context, then agree a next step with a check date. Written as SBI plus Inquiry plus Next.

Why the structure matters: a well known meta-analysis by Kluger and DeNisi (1996) found that feedback does not reliably improve performance, and in more than a third of the cases studied it made performance worse. Their explanation guides this whole skill. Feedback that points attention at the task helps. Feedback that points attention at the person, their character, worth, or motives, pulls attention away from the work. Every rule below keeps the conversation on the task.

Use this skill for one to one feedback, peer feedback, upward feedback to a manager, and positive feedback that should be repeated. It does not cover formal discipline, performance improvement plans, or investigations. Those follow your organization's own process, and this skill only helps with the conversation craft inside them.

Workflow

1. Check the feedback before you prepare it

Run four checks. Stop if any one fails.

• First hand: Did you see or hear it yourself, or read the actual work product? If not, you have a concern to check, not feedback to deliver. Say which it is.
• Recent and specific: Can you name the date, setting, and action without relying on a general impression? If not, wait and observe. Vague feedback delivered now teaches the person nothing and puts them on guard.
• About the work: Is the point about a behavior the person can change? Feedback about personality, accent, background, health, or circumstances outside their control is not feedback. Leave it out.
• Right motive: Would you still give it if no one would ever know you had? If the honest answer is no, you are venting or scoring a point. Wait until you can give it to help the work.

Write down one or two dated examples only. A list of eight examples reads as a case being built, and the conversation becomes a trial.

2. Prepare the SBI plus Inquiry plus Next statement

Draft five short parts. Use the prep lines below, then run the checker.

• Situation: one specific time and place. "In Tuesday's planning meeting" works. "In meetings lately" does not.
• Behavior: what a camera could have recorded. Words said, actions taken, work produced, deadlines hit or missed. No trait words, no motive guesses, no "always" or "never" without a count.
• Impact: the concrete effect. On the client, the team, a deadline, the quality of the work, or on you. Use plain language. "The client chased twice and we moved the review by two days" beats "it was not a good look".
• Inquiry: one open question that invites their account. "What got in the way?" or "How did it look from your side?" Their answer often changes the next step, and sometimes changes the feedback itself.
• Next: one concrete action, support you will offer, and a date to check it. Not a wish. "Send a risk note by Thursday noon if Friday is at risk, and we check the next report on its Thursday" is a next step. "Be more proactive" is not.

Check the draft:

python3 scripts/feedback_check.py --score draft.txt

The checker flags trait labels, motive phrases, absolutes, and vague phrases, and scores the five parts from 0 to 2 each. Treat the score as rehearsal feedback. Fix the lowest part first.

Camera test for the Behavior line: if a camera could not have recorded it, rewrite it. "You interrupted Ana twice before she finished" passes. "You were dismissive" fails, because dismissive is your reading of the action, not the action.

3. Pick the timing and the setting

• Give corrective feedback close to the event, while both of you still remember the details. Same day is best when you are calm. Within a few days is workable. Weeks later, the details are gone and the person hears a verdict, not an observation.
• Do not give it while you are angry, rushed, or in the middle of the person's own crisis. A short delay to cool down is good practice. A long delay to avoid discomfort helps no one.
• Corrective feedback is private. Always. No audience, no group chat, no copy list used as pressure.
• Positive feedback can be public if the person likes public recognition and the praise is specific. Some people do not like it. Ask once, remember the answer.
• Ask permission when you can: "Can I share an observation about Tuesday's call?" Asking takes five seconds and makes the next five minutes easier. Skip permission only when delay would let harm repeat.

4. Run the conversation in six moves

Keep the opening short. Most of the conversation should be listening.

1. Purpose and permission. State the topic and that you want their side. "I want to talk about the Friday report. I have an observation, and I want to hear what was happening on your end."
2. Deliver SBI. Three to four sentences, then stop. Do not stack examples, do not soften it into confusion, and do not keep talking to fill the silence.
3. Inquire and listen. Ask your inquiry question and let them answer in full. Do not interrupt to correct details unless a fact is plain wrong. Take a short note of their account.
4. Make meaning together. Say what you heard, name where you agree, and own any part where your reading was wrong. If their account changes the picture, say so plainly and adjust the feedback. Holding a point the facts no longer support costs you every future conversation.
5. Agree the next step. One action, owned by one person, with support and a check date. Prefer an action they propose. If they cannot propose one, offer yours as a starting point, not an order, unless the standard is not negotiable. If it is not negotiable, say that honestly instead of staging a fake choice.
6. Close. Restate the action and the check date, thank them for hearing it, and stop. Do not add a new point on the way out. The point raised at the door is the one they will remember, and it was never discussed.

Scripts for hard moments, defensiveness, tears, disputed facts, and too fast agreement, live in references/conversation-scripts.md.

5. Watch the two framing checks

Use Kim Scott's Radical Candor frame as a self-check before and after, not as a script.

• Care Personally plus Challenge Directly is the target: clear about the problem, plainly on the person's side.
• Challenge without care lands as an attack, however accurate the facts are.
• Care without challenge means withholding the point to spare feelings. The problem grows, and the person later asks why nobody told them.
• Neither care nor challenge produces vague hints, jokes with an edge, and comments made to others instead of to the person.

Second check: do not use the feedback sandwich. Praise, criticism, praise in one bundle makes the praise sound like padding, buries the middle message, and teaches people to brace whenever you praise them. Give real praise separately and at its own moment. Raise the problem directly and kindly.

6. Give positive feedback with the same structure

Positive feedback fails in the opposite way: it is warm and useless. "Good job" tells the person nothing about what to repeat.

Use SBI on its own. Situation, the specific behavior, the impact it had. Then name the practice you want kept, and where it applies next. A written follow-up for strong work puts it on the record and costs you five minutes. Template in references/follow-up-templates.md.

Do not attach a correction to a thank-you, and do not save praise up for reviews. Praise close to the event, in the same detail you would use for a correction.

7. Adapt for peer and upward feedback

Same structure, two adjustments.

• Peer feedback: you have no authority over the next step, so the Next part is a request or a joint fix, and the impact should focus on your shared work. Offer the same standard back: "I will use the same format when I hand work to you."
• Upward feedback: keep the impact on the work, pick a private and calm moment, and bring one or two examples only. Do not recruit colleagues as backing without their knowledge. If the issue is safety, harassment, or wrongdoing, use your reporting route instead of a feedback conversation.

8. Follow up in writing and then check

Send a short written follow-up the same day when you can, within one working day at the latest. It records what you raised, what they added, what was agreed, the support, and the check date. It adds nothing new. Templates in references/follow-up-templates.md.

Then keep the check date. At the check-in:

• If the change happened, say so with a specific observation and close the item.
• If it partly happened, name what changed and what is still open, and set one new date.
• If nothing changed and the conversations are done, follow your organization's process for the next formal step, and say that is what you are doing. Do not keep repeating the same informal conversation and expecting a different result.

Keep your follow-up notes factual and dated. Write every note as if the person will read it later, because in many processes they can.

9. Rehearse with scored practice before a hard one

Before a conversation you are dreading, run one practice round from references/practice-scenarios.md. Write your opening, score it with the checker, compare it with the model answer, and rewrite the weakest part once. Six scenarios cover a late deliverable, interrupting in meetings, strong work, upward feedback, quality errors, and a tense peer handoff.

Output Contract

For a prepared feedback conversation, produce:

• A one paragraph SBI plus Inquiry plus Next statement, ready to say, with the situation dated and the behavior in camera language.
• The checker result for that draft, or a note that it was run and passed with no high flags.
• One inquiry question, written out.
• The agreed or proposed next step, with owner, support offered, and check date.
• A written follow-up note, from the templates, sent within one working day of the conversation.
• After the check-in, a dated closing note: change seen, partly seen, or not seen, and what happens next.

For a practice session, produce the scored draft, the rewrite, and the new score.

Operating Rules

• Specific observations over labels, every time. If you cannot name the action, you are not ready to give the feedback.
• One topic per conversation. Two at most if they are the same pattern. A bundle of unrelated points is a dumping session, not feedback.
• No feedback by surprise in a formal review. Anything serious in a review should have been raised when it happened. If it was not, own that gap in the review itself.
• Never deliver corrective feedback in public, by group message, or through another person.
• Do not give feedback you received second hand as if it were your own observation. Name the source type honestly or check it yourself first.
• Do not promise total confidentiality you cannot keep. If the content involves safety, harassment, or legal risk, your reporting duties come first. Say so if it comes up.
• Accept feedback on your feedback. If the person says the timing, setting, or tone made it hard to hear, hear that out. You can fix the delivery without dropping a fair point.
• Keep records short, factual, and dated. No character summaries, no speculation about motives, no private life.
• When you get it wrong, correct it in the same channel you delivered it, and just as clearly.