Kennan
Playbook

How to give difficult feedback at work.

Most feedback at work does not land — not because it is wrong, but because it lands as a verdict instead of a description. The recipient hears "you are aggressive" and defends; what you meant was "in the Q2 planning meeting, you cut in twice before the engineering lead finished her point."

This is the move-by-move playbook for the moment you have to give hard feedback to a peer, a report, or a senior colleague. It is built from two named frameworks: SBI, the structure that strips trait labels out, and the Gottman four-horsemen antidotes, the moves that keep the conversation going when it threatens to derail.

When feedback lands and when it doesn't

Feedback lands best when three conditions hold:

  • It is specific to a recent, recallable event
  • It describes process, not character
  • The recipient has a path to act on it

The corollary: feedback fails when it is vague, late, evaluative, or delivered without a constructive path forward. SBI fixes all four.

Step 1 — Write the SBI before you speak

Before the conversation, write down three things from the SBI framework:

  • Situation — the specific context. Meeting, document, week, project. "In the Q2 planning meeting on Tuesday." Avoid "always" and "never."
  • Behavior — what you observed, in process language. "You interrupted twice before the engineering lead finished her point," not "you were aggressive."
  • Impact — the consequence on the work or the room. "The engineering lead stopped contributing for the rest of the meeting." Stay on consequence, not character.

If you cannot fill in all three concretely, the feedback is not ready. The hardest one is usually Behavior — most people default to a trait label. Force yourself to describe what actually happened.

Step 2 — Open with intent, then deliver the SBI

The opening sentence sets the frame for the whole conversation. Do not start with the criticism. Start with the goal:

I want to flag something from the Q2 planning meeting because I think it is worth us talking about.

Then deliver the SBI cleanly. Situation, Behavior, Impact. No hedging, no softeners ("I might be wrong about this, but…" — that undoes the work the structure is doing).

Step 3 — Inquire intent

After delivering the SBI, ask:

What were you trying to do in that moment? I want to make sure I am reading it right.

This is the "I" in SBI-I, and it is what stops the conversation from collapsing into accusation. It also gives the recipient agency — they get to explain their thinking, not just defend.

Step 4 — Use the defensiveness antidote if it derails

Most recipients will react defensively. That is normal. The Gottman defensiveness antidote is to concede one true piece of the critique before responding. As the giver, you can model it back to lower the room temperature:

Fair point — I should have raised this in the moment instead of after. That is on me. The pattern still concerns me, and I want us to talk about it.

Concede one piece. Then return to the SBI. Conceding does not invalidate the feedback. It removes the defensive surface so the feedback can land.

Step 5 — Close with the path forward

End the conversation with a concrete next step. Not "let me know if you want to talk more" — that is a deflection. Specifically:

In the next planning meeting, can we hold to a one-pass speaking order before any back-and-forth? I think it would surface the dependency risks earlier.

A specific ask is what turns feedback into change. A vague invitation puts the work back on the recipient.

Sample dialogue

You: "I want to flag something from the Q2 planning meeting because I think it is worth us talking about. In the meeting on Tuesday, I noticed you cut in twice before Sarah finished her point on the dependency risks. The team left the meeting unclear on whether her concerns had been heard, and two people DM'd me afterward to ask whether the decision was final. What were you trying to do in those moments? I want to make sure I am reading it right."

Them: "I disagree with the framing. Sarah's point was not actually a dependency risk; it was a deadline complaint. I was trying to keep the meeting moving."

You: "Fair point — I should have flagged this in the moment instead of after. That is on me. And I take your read that the point was a deadline issue, not a dependency. The thing I would still want to talk about is the room's read of it — even if your interpretation was right, the room came out unclear. In the next planning meeting, can we hold to a one-pass speaking order before any back-and-forth? I think it would surface what is actually a dependency risk versus a deadline complaint earlier."

Common pitfalls

  1. Trait labels. "You are aggressive," "you are not detail-oriented," "you are defensive" — all evaluations, all difficult to act on. Always describe the process.
  2. Vague situation. "Lately," "in meetings," "always" — these read as accusations because they cannot be checked. Name the specific event.
  3. Skipping the intent inquiry. Without the "I," even clean SBI can read as a verdict. Ask what they were trying to do.
  4. Closing without a path. "Let me know if you want to talk more" puts the work back on the recipient. Name the specific next step.
  5. Delivering it three months late. Feedback works when the situation is fresh enough to recall. A week is fine, a quarter is too late.

Get this on a HUD only you can see.

Kennan is the real-time AI meeting assistant for Mac. When the recipient pushes back with "I disagree with the framing," the assistant surfaces the next move — the defensiveness antidote, the return to SBI — in the same shape as the dialogue above. Join the waitlist to get notified at launch.

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