Solo Mission Series: Turn Vague Criticism Into Usable Behavior Change

Most leaders think the hard part is “giving feedback.” I think the real challenge is clarity. When we say things like “be more proactive” or “watch your tone,” we’re usually handing someone a foggy request they can’t translate into action, or we’re accidentally aiming at their identity instead of their behavior. No wonder people get defensive and nothing changes. 

Join Jay in this week's Solo Mission Series as he walks through why feedback fails in predictable ways: it’s too general, it lands like a character judgment, it shows up late, or it tells people what to stop without offering a replacement behavior. 

You’ll leave with practical tools you can use the same day: the SBI method (Situation, Behavior, Impact), a simple way to add the “why” so feedback feels future-forward, and an “ask” that turns a monologue into a real conversation. I also share replacement behavior examples that include a clear trigger and measurable output, plus a 2x2x2 map to adjust your approach based on intent and skill. 

Try the seven-day challenge at the end, and if it helps, subscribe, share the show with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with the tool you’re going to test first.

Interested in being a guest on The Talent Forge? Contact our producer, Madison Bennett, via email: madison@coeuscreativegroup.com.

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Transcript

Four Reasons Feedback Fails

Real Examples Of Vague Feedback

High Performers Still Need Feedback

The Science Behind Defensiveness

SBI Method For Clear Feedback

Add The Why And Ask

Replacement Behaviors That Stick

2x2x2 Feedback Map And Challenge

Closing: Stop Wishing Start Mapping

Jay Johnson 0:39

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where together we're shaping workforce behavior. Today's episode is going to be a solo mission. See, most leaders think that they have a feedback problem. In reality, they don't. It's not a problem with feedback. They have a clarity problem. Because what we call feedback in the workplace is usually one of two things. It's either a vague statement that changes nothing, something like, be more proactive, communicate better, we need a better attitude around here. Or it's a personal critique disguised as coaching. Something like, well, I just don't see your commitment level. You seem to be very careless when you're putting in these reports. Or it doesn't really appear to me that you care. Neither of these are going to change behavior. In fact, vague feedback strictly creates confusion. Today's mission is simple. We're going to make feedback that actually works, which means we're going to have to make it behavioral, specific, and usable. So here's what we're going to cover today. We're going to define why feedback fails, walk through some examples that are unfortunately common, explain some of the science behind defensiveness, learning, and even performance under feedback. We'll give you multiple tools, scripts, and step-by-step systems. And then we're going to end with a quick challenge and accountability plan so you can turn this into a positive leadership habit. This is good science only, no gimmicks, no manipulation, no motivational fluff. Let's get into it. So let's talk first about why feedback fails. And it fails for a few predictable reasons. The first, and very much associated with what we talked about at the beginning, is the specificity. Most feedback is too general. When feedback comes out vague, the receiver cannot actually convert it into a behavior. So when we use something like from the beginning, be more proactive, that's not a behavior. It's more of a wish. We need to give examples. We need to give some different step-by-steps and playbooks. If it's too general, the feedback's not going to stick and it's not going to be operational. Second, feedback often fails because it seems to feel like an identity attack rather than a behavioral correction. What do I mean by that? Well, when feedback targets the character, people tend to protect themselves. So for example, when feedback comes out, such as, uh, I find that you are careless during this last uh reporting cycle, that's gonna feel more like a personal attack. And whether it's a high performer or a low performer, that's gonna create a courtroom. They're gonna start defending themselves. They're gonna put up that wall and say, What do you mean careless? I was under so much pressure. I was stressed out. You gave me too much, and all of a sudden the excuses come because it's not specific, but it's also signifying something that's related to identity. The third reason feedback often fails is because it comes late. Old feedback is history, not coaching. You know, if you want to document something for the six-month performance, I used to hate this. I worked in a place where we only got performance evaluations and feedbacks every 12 months. It felt like any time that we were going through that process, it was like, did you document this the entire year and not tell me? Like what value is indicating something that I did in January, now that we're here in December, telling me how I should change that? Because I've probably done it a hundred times since January. Feedback needs to be iterative, it needs to be on time, on demand, and it needs to be something that's part of the culture. If something happened even three weeks ago and we're talking about it now, the brain is going to treat it like punishment, not guidance. Fourth, oftentimes feedback lacks a replacement. This is a big one here. Most feedback tells people the what and the how or what not to do, but it doesn't necessarily spell out what they need to be doing instead. And when I say spelling out, I'm also gonna shift this into feedback should be a conversation. It should be a two-way conversation, not just necessarily giving somebody advice or telling them how to do something. It's gotta be iterative. So if you actually want behavior change, we've not only have to rip you know provide a replacement behavior, but we've also got to be able to give them some opportunity to question it, to learn more about it, to be able to ask, you know, some kind of clarifying questions of what it looks like or even ways to practice it. So these are the common reasons that feedback fails. There's many, many more, but I think that's sufficient for what we're trying to accomplish. Let's take a look at a couple of examples. You know, in example number one, and this is one that I literally heard from a client, I was reading some of the management transcripts, and somebody had said, one of the managers had told their employees, I need you to be more proactive. Uh with that being said, that person actually responded fairly positively. But the positive response ended up generating a number of questions. Well, what do you mean by more proactive? Uh, how do you want me to do that? What does that seem like? How does that show up? Uh, is that in meetings and emails with clients, with deadlines? All of a sudden, proactive didn't really have the same connotation. What the manager was actually saying wants you to take initiative and stepped up for more projects. I want you to put your hand up the next time something comes up. It was actually intended to be a really positive conversation. Although the person took it well, there was clearly some different confusion. And I was thinking about that specific one and how that could have really turned into a negative, into a negative conversation or a difficult conversation had the person not reacted with some emotional intelligence there. So that's a great example of when we say, hey, you know, I'd really love for you to be more proactive in your approach. Well, how, when, what? Give those specific details. I'll give you another example is when one manager was actually questioning the tone of one of their employees. And ultimately it's just like in meetings, your tone seems to be a little harsh. We'd like you to pull that back a little bit. Now, tone is a big part of how we are perceived and how we interact and the meaning that we make with our message. So the feedback here was probably intended to be good. That, hey, this could be damaging your reputation, this could have an impact. But when you say to somebody, your tone is harsh, immediately that's gonna create the conditions for defensiveness. That person's gonna go, what do you mean, harsh? I'm not harsh, and usually it comes out harsh, which is kind of hilarious. But when we're gonna have a conversation about tone, maybe we start that with a question like, hey, do you notice any kind of perceptions of you around the office? How do you think people feel about you? Or we're gonna open it up with even something specific on the tone question. Hey, have you ever noticed how people react when you're in a meeting when you talk about acts? This is gonna create some space for some personal learning or maybe personal reflection. When we go in guns blazing, saying something like, watch your tone, well, maybe we could shift that to observable behaviors. Hey, I noticed that when your tone elevates to a higher pitch, it seems that people react differently. Or when I see your tone uh get really sharp and short, it seems to create X, Y, and Z. Have you noticed that, or is that your experience? And then opening it up some space for conversation. Another example is going to be defensiveness. Let's say you're talking to somebody, um, a high performer. Now, here's the tricky part with feedback for high performers. A lot of times they don't end up getting feedback, even if it could be useful, even if it could be valuable, because there's a big fear of, well, I don't want to give feedback because they're our highest performer. Well, more than likely, they got to be a high performer by getting better. And reality says we get better when we actually have feedback. Yes, it shouldn't be a scary thing. So when you're giving feedback to a high performer, one of the things that we do want to acknowledge is the work that they're doing. In fact, this is actually a good practice for anybody. Acknowledging, hey, I see how hard you're working on X, Y, and Z. I noticed your results last quarter were the top of the top. Hey, I've seen what you do and what you put into these different reports and how accurate they are. These are all fantastic things. And then shift it. Shift it with a question. Something as simple as, would you be open to feedback that might help you make those even better, make that even faster, make this even easier, and wait for the response. When that feedback, most people are not going to say, no, I don't want feedback. I don't want to get better. It's just silly, right? So we know that at some level they're going to respond back with a yes. Maybe they say, you know, right now I'm really busy. Uh, could you get could you give me that feedback later? Perfect. If they're not prepared to receive the feedback, they're not going to receive the feedback whether you give it or not. Okay. So this is good information. But once they say yes, now we can say, as I mentioned, you are already crushing it on this space. But one thing that I think you could look at is X, Y, or Z. That would make that even faster, bigger, stronger, better, whatever that might be, whatever that you know outcome's going to be. So this is how we might frame that. But just because they're a high performer doesn't mean that they shouldn't be getting feedback. It's just the way that we do it oftentimes can be alienating or it can be scary to do so. So let's look at some of the science behind effective feedback. Here's a few principles that really matter. When we ground this in reputable learning and performance research, it's going to make a lot of sense. The first is when we are in a threat response, we don't learn. And this is part of the reason why we're afraid of giving feedback, because of how somebody's going to react to it. Uh, are they going to get angry? Are they going to get upset? But the reality is, is when we are in a threat response, even giving the feedback, we're probably not coming in from our own curiosity. If we do this the wrong way and we trigger that threat response or we trigger that negative response, well, guess what? Their brain's going to shift into protection mode, and that means that their attention is going to narrow, working memory is going to drop, curiosity is going to go away, and they're going to get defensive and self-justify. This is why anything that is not specifically related to future forward growth and how we're going to develop together is going to be triggering in that feedback loops. Second, specificity reduces cognitive load. This is so important. We have so many different things going on. So many of the organizations I talk to talk about feeling like they're firefighters every single day. It's like, oh my gosh, I've got another fire that I've got to put out today. Well, yeah. So when we're giving feedback, assume that the brain is already somewhat taxed. And if we're not specific with our feedback, meaning that we're giving the who, what, when, where, why, and how, it means that they're probably not going to take the change. Guessing is going to consume a lot of mental energy and create some anxiety. So if we are not giving that specific feedback, it is going to essentially backfire. Now, let's look at another one. Feedback works best when it's included in the task, the process or the next step. Let me repeat that. Feedback works best when it is included in the task, process, or the next step. Meaning, it's not just evaluative, it's iterative in real time. It's going to guide the person. Here's what's happening. Here's how you can shift this. Here's what you can do as we navigate the rest of this forward. Here's what we're going to be able to measure as we make progress. See, when we do it inclusively in the task processor system, it gives the opportunity for real-time correction. Now we got to make sure that we're doing this in the right way, of course, and we'll talk more about those tips and tactics, but we also have to make sure that we're doing this safely. If you're on the manufacturing line and you're in somebody's ear giving them feedback, that might be dangerous. So use your best judgment, but make sure that you're doing this in a meaningful way during, and that can really be a powerful practice. The last one that I'm going to give here from the science is practice is always going to beat intention. When we're shifting a behavior, when we're making a change, it's going to require some repetition. A single conversation, a single feedback conversation is probably not going to change a habit. What does change habits is clear targets, replacement behaviors, so some substitutive behavior, repeated practice of it, and some level of accountability loop. That can be a reward system or that could be a reminder system, whatever those are. That's what's actually going to get the behavioral shift. So when we're thinking about it, consider that practice is always going to beat intention. And that's why leaders who say it once are generally disappointed that the feedback didn't stick or things didn't change. So, with all of this being said, we understand why feedback fails, we understand some of those common scenarios, and now we've looked at some of the science behind what it is that's creating the conditions for ineffective feedback. Now let's get to the good stuff. How are we going to fix these different systems? So we are going to install a few different systems here. The first is called the SBI method. So Sally, Bob, Irene, SBI. What that stands for actually is situation behavior impact. Now, this is going to be the foundation of feedback. The situation is when and where. This is going to give the context, the environment, what happened or what we perceived, and everything else. Now, the behavioral aspect of it is what they did. So this is going to be the observable piece of it. Not the story that we're telling ourselves, but I noticed that you came in five minutes late. You have that. It's quantifiable. I can see it, I can look at the clock, see when you walked in the door, right? It's observable. Another observable behavior could be hey, I noticed there were 13 different spelling errors in the Word doc that you submitted. Well, what can we do? We can count those up. So the behavior that we're looking at here is the quantifiable and observable aspect of action. We want to be very clear on that. The last is the impact. So that's what happened because of it. Let me give you an example. Yesterday in the 2 p.m. client call, that's the situation, you jumped in twice before Maria finished her point. That's the behavior. The client got confused about ownership, and Maria pulled back for the rest of the meeting. That's the impact. Now, no labels, no mind reading, and no character judgments. Just reality. The situation, the behavior, the impact. This is going to be one of the powerful ways that we can do this to move forward. Now, one of the big tools that I want to share with you, and this is this is really where I call it the game changer. So often the feedback is how and what. This is what you did wrong, this is how you should do it in the future, or this is how you did this, this is what I'd like to see next time. It rarely catches the why. All right, what do I mean by the why? And you know, Simon Sinek and all the start with why, it's a great practice and feedback conversations as well. The why is simply why is this important for the individual, and why is this important for the overall work that we're accomplishing together? Let me give you an example of this. If I was to say, hey Jay, you know, the reports that you turned in, they had a few errors on it. Next time that you do those reports, can you really double check and make sure that those errors aren't there? Okay, that's one way to give feedback. Hey, this is where we add the why. This is what it looks like if the why isn't there. Hey, Jay, I know you care a lot about your reputation, and these feedback reports are read by the upper ups. This last one that came through had a few clerical errors in it. And I know that's not typically your style. Next time as you come through this, what I want to do is make sure that you have the opportunity and the time to go through and just double check because this is going to be meaningful to your future career. If the upper ups see that you're diligent, that you're on time and accurate, it's really gonna mean something when we start looking at raises and promotions in the next performance evaluation. Secondly, those errors and clerical errors could really disrupt us if we have some missing, uh if we have some missing information. And I know you really care about this work. So here's what I'd like to see. This was the situation, this was the behavior, this is the intention or the impact of it. But there's a why associated with it. When we add the why, the feedback feels like it's future forward. The feedback feels like, oh, this is to help me. It's not a criticism of me. I may still feel bad or the person may still feel guilty that they made a mistake. Maybe they get a little defensive, but if they know that it's in service to being better next time, that's gonna be huge. And it's gonna make all the difference in the world for how they show up and how they implement that in the future. The third tool that we're gonna look here is the ask, okay? And this is where we can make it conversational. So we've added in the why, we've given them the context of why we're saying this, we've looked at SBI, the situation, behavior, and impact. Now, here is the critical step. Once we give the feedback, what we want to do is ask. Does that make sense? How is that usable? What do you see on this? All right. It explains, the SBI explains what happens, but it doesn't complete the loop. What we want to do is let them finish and then open up some clarifying questions. Give them the opportunity to question it. So ask. In your next feedback moment, don't stop at just sharing the what and how. Make sure the why is there and say, how does that land for you? What questions might you have? How else could you look at this? What are some things that you could do to improve that outcome as you navigate forward? The ask is super important. This is what makes it conversational. The next tool I want to talk about is the replacement behavior. Now, if you want somebody to stop a behavior, you need a substitute. Give them some kind of a replacement. So bad feedback would look like please stop being negative. Good feedback would look like, hey, when you see an issue or a challenge, name the risk and offer a solution instead. Bad feedback. I need you to be more professional in the meetings. Good feedback. In the client meetings, open with a decision and two bullets of rationale and then ask for questions on the next step. Notice how there's a very specific set of behaviors that are being encouraged. In the bad feedback, it leaves it open for interpretation. In the good feedback, we're going to give very specific. The replacement behavior is going to have a trigger in this situation, an action. You do this and a measurable output. And this is what you're looking for. Okay? That is going to make it actionable and move and give them the opportunity to move forward. So the last tool that I'm going to share with you is called the two by two by two feedback map. All right. Leaders often struggle because they don't know when to soften and when to tighten. So this is a simple map and it comes with four different quadrants. Quadrant one, high intent, low skill. This means that the person's eager, ready to go, but they don't have the skill yet. And your response on how you need to be giving feedback is to coach and train. All right. So high intent, low skill. We want to be providing hands-on coaching, training, and any kind of onboarding that we can do to develop that skill. The second quadrant is low intent, high skill. This is that person who is maybe really, really good at what they do, but they just don't care. They don't seem to be engaged. In this case, what we're going to want to do is clarify expectations, and we're going to want to make sure that it's very, very clear consequences and reward opportunities for the behaviors to be exhibited. The third quant contact quadrant is low intent and low skill. Okay? This may mean that the person is the wrong person for the role. We may want to reset fit, reset the role, or even potentially remove the person. They're not interested in a job and they're not performing it with any skill. This is where a hard decision has to be made by a leader. The fourth quadrant is the high intent and the high skill. Now, this is that high performer that we talked about earlier. In this case, what we're going to want to do is reinforce, reward, and then push to stretch different pieces. Most leaders tend to treat every person the same. And that's why feedback can often feel exhausting. But this quadrant framework is going to give you a question is this intent, skill, or both? And that's going to guide you towards giving the best possible feedback. To be within the framework of helping that person where they're at. Okay. I'm going to give you a seven-day challenge here. For the next seven days, I am challenging you to give one piece of positive feedback using the SBI with an ask. Okay? The situation, behavior, impact with an ask. How does that land for you? What else could you do? How else might we think about that? Giving that one piece of feedback using SBI plus A is going to feel a little different when you when it's going to feel a little challenging when you start because you're going to be thinking, don't overthink it. Get it mapped out, write it down, and then walk into the feedback conversation with that. That's a positive piece of feedback. The second challenge here is giving a piece of corrective feedback using the same model, S B I plus A. Now, when you're doing this, don't forget to add the Y and a replacement behavior. The last piece in this challenge is scheduling a follow-up check-in. I suggest you do this within a short amount of time. I like the two by two by two rule here. This is check-in in two days, in two weeks, in two months. Making sure that that behavioral change has shifted. Okay, but schedule at least one follow-up check-in so that way you can do that. All right. So I'm going to close today with this. Feedback should not be confrontation and it shouldn't be guesswork. Feedback is really your best leadership, management, and team building tool to help people find growth and get to their best performance. And trust me when I say this, it's although it sometimes seems like it may not seem like this, people don't want to suck at their job. People don't want to make mistakes. It hurts our ego, it goes against the grain. So giving effective, positive, specific, and behavior-focused feedback is the greatest gift that you can give to building that high performance culture. Unclear leadership creates anxiety, politics, resentments, and performance problems. So take this, make it precise. Precise feedback separates the people from the behavior and gives the opportunity to create new impact. And that is how behavior changes. So your mission this week is simple stop wishing people would improve, start giving them a map. This solo mission is concluding, and I want to say thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Talent Forge, where together we're shaping workforce behavior.