Invite a response after delivering SBI — Close SBI by asking what the other person makes of it — not with a verdict. Feedforward: Future-Focused Feedback That Actually Changes Behavior — Feedforward, developed by executive coach Marshall Goldsmith, replaces backward-looking critique with forward-looking suggestions — asking "what ideas do you have for the future?" rather than "what did I do wrong?" The core claim is that people are more receptive to ideas about what they could do than to judgments about what they did. Evidence is primarily clinical and practitioner-based rather than from controlled trials. Ask for ideas about the future, not assessments of the past — Replace "how did I do?" with "what ideas do you have for how I could do better?" The Feedback Sandwich: Why It Doesn’t Work and What to Do Instead — The feedback sandwich (positive–negative–positive) is the dominant model for giving feedback in workplaces, but research and practitioner experience suggest it routinely fails: recipients either remember only the positive parts or dismiss the negative as softened insincerity. The practices below cover why it fails mechanistically and what specific alternatives are better supported. Feedback Loops and Behavior Change — Feedback loops are the mechanism by which information about the gap between current and desired performance reaches the actor and drives adjustment. Cybernetics established the theoretical foundation; decades of applied research confirm that self-monitoring and feedback are among the most robust behavior-change techniques — particularly for health behaviors. The key design questions are feedback frequency, the right metric, and the gap between signal and response. The SBI Feedback Model, Made Practical — The SBI model (Situation–Behavior–Impact), developed by the Center for Creative Leadership, structures feedback by anchoring it to an observable moment, describing the behavior seen rather than inferring motive, and naming the actual impact. This reduces defensiveness and attribution errors; the model is established clinical practice in leadership development, though direct RCT comparisons to other feedback approaches are limited. Receive feedback with minimal defensiveness — Treat feedback as data about others’ experience — not as a verdict on your character. Close feedback by checking understanding, not agreement — Ask "What did you take from that?" rather than "Do you agree?" Choose the right moment and setting for feedback — Feedback lands in proportion to how safe and ready the receiver feels — timing and privacy matter. Add a forward-looking request to SBI — Pair the impact statement with a specific, doable request for next time.

Coaching practices for How to Use Feedback

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

I deliver my feedback as a finished verdict and then the other person just sits there closed off
Whenever I ask how I’m doing, the answer comes back as a verdict on what I already screwed up, and I spend the whole conversation defending myself instead of actually learning anything I could use next time.
The instant someone gives me hard feedback I’m already explaining and defending myself
My feedback conversations end with the person nodding and saying "yeah, makes sense, got it"
I blurt out corrections in the heat of the moment, often right in front of other people, and instead of taking it in they just get humiliated and dig in

Practices that may help

Invite a response after delivering SBI
Close SBI by asking what the other person makes of it — not with a verdict.
The SBI Feedback Model, Made Practical
Feedforward: Future-Focused Feedback That Actually Changes Behavior
Feedforward, developed by executive coach Marshall Goldsmith, replaces backward-looking critique with forward-looking suggestions — asking "what ideas do you have for the future?" rather than "what did I do wrong?" The core claim is that people are more receptive to ideas about what they could do than to judgments about what they did. Evidence is primarily clinical and practitioner-based rather than from controlled trials.
Ask for ideas about the future, not assessments of the past
Replace "how did I do?" with "what ideas do you have for how I could do better?"
Feedforward: Future-Focused Feedback That Actually Changes Behavior
The Feedback Sandwich: Why It Doesn’t Work and What to Do Instead
The feedback sandwich (positive–negative–positive) is the dominant model for giving feedback in workplaces, but research and practitioner experience suggest it routinely fails: recipients either remember only the positive parts or dismiss the negative as softened insincerity. The practices below cover why it fails mechanistically and what specific alternatives are better supported.
Feedback Loops and Behavior Change
Feedback loops are the mechanism by which information about the gap between current and desired performance reaches the actor and drives adjustment. Cybernetics established the theoretical foundation; decades of applied research confirm that self-monitoring and feedback are among the most robust behavior-change techniques — particularly for health behaviors. The key design questions are feedback frequency, the right metric, and the gap between signal and response.
The SBI Feedback Model, Made Practical
The SBI model (Situation–Behavior–Impact), developed by the Center for Creative Leadership, structures feedback by anchoring it to an observable moment, describing the behavior seen rather than inferring motive, and naming the actual impact. This reduces defensiveness and attribution errors; the model is established clinical practice in leadership development, though direct RCT comparisons to other feedback approaches are limited.
Receive feedback with minimal defensiveness
Treat feedback as data about others’ experience — not as a verdict on your character.
The Johari Window
Close feedback by checking understanding, not agreement
Ask "What did you take from that?" rather than "Do you agree?"
The Feedback Sandwich: Why It Doesn’t Work and What to Do Instead
Choose the right moment and setting for feedback
Feedback lands in proportion to how safe and ready the receiver feels — timing and privacy matter.
The SBI Feedback Model, Made Practical
Add a forward-looking request to SBI
Pair the impact statement with a specific, doable request for next time.
The SBI Feedback Model, Made Practical

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