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Struggling with feedback conversations? Harvard psychiatrist and leadership coach Dr. Michael Nevarez shares practical frameworks to help you give feedback that actually works. Learn the SBI model for clarity, the STEP framework for curiosity, and contrast statements for heated moments. This episode transforms feedback from dreaded obligation to powerful leadership tool.
Why Most Feedback Conversations Fail (And How to Fix Them)
If you've ever left a feedback conversation feeling like you just made things worse, you're not alone. Research spanning over a century, including a landmark meta-analysis by Kluger and DeNisi, found that more than one-third of feedback interventions actually decreased performance instead of improving it. The reason? Most feedback focuses on personality judgments rather than observable behaviors.
Dr. Michael Nevarez, Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Assistant Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, brings a unique lens to this leadership challenge. His journey into leadership coaching began during the COVID-19 pandemic when he supported frontline healthcare workers and their leaders through an unprecedented crisis. Since then, he's dedicated his practice to helping leaders master one of the most challenging aspects of their role: giving feedback that creates positive change rather than defensiveness and disconnection.
The challenge with feedback stems from a fundamental tension between two core human needs. Everyone carries a story about themselves, that they're competent, reliable, and good at what they do, and feedback can threaten that self-image. At the same time, leaders need to maintain strong relationships with their team members while helping them grow. This explains why so many leaders struggle with feedback: they're caught between wanting to drive improvement and fearing they'll damage relationships or trigger defensive reactions that shut down the entire conversation.
The Two Places Leaders Trip Up on Feedback
Most leaders prepare extensively for the "push" phase of feedback. They script their message, rehearse their words, and feel ready to deliver their observation. But Dr. Nevarez identifies two critical areas where even well-intentioned leaders stumble.
The first is clarity. Specifically, how objectively and behaviorally anchored the feedback actually is. When feedback drifts into judgments about personality or traits, who someone is instead of what they did, it triggers what psychologists call the fundamental attribution error. We naturally explain other people's behavior as a reflection of who they are rather than the situation they're in. A colleague misses a deadline, and we default to thinking they're disorganized rather than considering that three other urgent requests may have landed on their desk.
The second area is deploying curiosity. Most leaders genuinely want to learn and understand their employee's perspective, but they lack practical tools to do so effectively. Without skills for the "pull" phase of feedback, two things happen: either you get surprised mid-conversation when the employee's story is totally different than you expected, or worse, they nod politely and you both walk away without ever touching the real issue.
Consider this example: A leader gives feedback that someone missed a couple of deadlines and frames it as needing better time management. They might even send the employee to a time management workshop. But if they had taken time in the pull phase, they might discover the person actually finishes work early all the time but is double-checking details that don't matter and worrying about minimal issues. That's a prioritization and risk assessment issue. Without curiosity, you'll never uncover the real growth opportunity.
The SBI Framework: Delivering Crystal-Clear Feedback
To address the clarity challenge, Dr. Nevarez relies on the Center for Creative Leadership's SBI framework: Situation, Behavior, Impact. The key is describing what someone did, using verbs, not who they are, using adjectives.
Here's the difference in action:
Vague version: "Mike, I just need you to be more open to other people's ideas in the project meeting and listen more to what the manager is saying when they present."
SBI version: "Mike, in yesterday's meeting (situation), I noticed you interrupted Jane and Craig twice before they were done presenting (behavior), which made it hard for them to finish their points and share their full thinking with the team (impact). I also noticed you jumped straight in with a counterpoint to Craig instead of asking a follow-up question first (behavior), which didn't give him a chance to expand on his data (impact)."
Notice how the second version uses all verbs, interrupted, responded, jumped in, asked, instead of adjectives like "not open" or "bad listener". This linguistic shift is psychologically powerful. Instead of someone's identity being critiqued, they hear a description of observable action they can change.
To practice this yourself, try this exercise: Picture yourself as a third-person observer, almost like a video camera in the room where the situation happened. How would you explain the actual behaviors to somebody else in verbs, without adjectives? This extra step takes work, but it prevents the fundamental attribution error and sets up the conversation for real learning instead of defensiveness.
The STEP Framework: Deploying Curiosity to Understand Perspective
Once you've delivered clear, behavioral feedback in the push phase, the real opportunity for growth happens in the pull phase and this is where Dr. Nevarez's STEP framework becomes invaluable.
STEP is an acronym designed to help leaders move down what organizational psychologist Chris Argyris calls the "ladder of inference". Here's how the ladder works: Imagine a ladder standing in a pool of water. The water represents all possible data we could notice in a situation, but our brains can't take it all in. We select certain details and climb up the first rung where we start making interpretations based on our past experiences and organizational culture. Then we climb higher to draw conclusions, and finally, at the top, we take action.
Here's what STEP stands for:
S - Summary or Stance: Where did they land? What's their overall take or conclusion? This is the top of the ladder. Ask: "What's your overall take on this?"
T - Thought Process: How did they get there? What were they weighing, assuming, or prioritizing? Ask: "Walk me through what you were thinking" or "What seemed most important to you?" or "What beliefs shaped your thinking?"
E - Experience: What did they notice in the moment and what was it like for them? Ask: "What details stood out?" or "What was that moment like for you?" Don't shy away from asking about emotions, they're core to how we make decisions. Instead of "What were you feeling?" try "What's a good word for how you were feeling then?" This creates a helpful distance that feels less exposing.
P - Perspective: After unpacking those rungs, step back together. Ask: "Now that we've discussed this, what feels most solid to you?" or "Is there another way to look at this?" or "If someone else saw this situation, what might they pick up on?"
The beauty of STEP is that it's flexible, you don't have to start with S every time. If someone is overwhelmed and doesn't have a clear stance, start with E (experience) and meet them where they're at. If someone is rigid and absolutely certain, acknowledge their stance but move quickly to E and T to add nuance. The point isn't following a script; it's deliberately touching key points to understand someone's experience.
Creating the Right Conditions: Psychological Safety and Clear Requests
Even the best feedback frameworks won't work without psychological safety. If your mindset is to catch and correct people, no framework will help you. But if your intention is genuine curiosity and clarity, and you back it up with your behaviors, understanding before judging, then STEP becomes a powerful tool.
Dr. Nevarez also emphasizes the importance of making clear requests upstream to prevent downstream feedback issues. He shares the TASTY framework from Corentus, a team coaching firm, which distinguishes between a "soft ask" and a "clear request".
TASTY stands for:
T - Target: Who specifically is responsible?
A - Action: What exactly are they doing?
S - Specific: What are the details?
T - Timing: When is this due?
Y - Yes/No: What does a clear yes or no to this request mean?
Compare these two requests:
Soft ask: "Could somebody check in with marketing about their thoughts on the new product message after this meeting?"
TASTY version: "Mike, can you please talk with Susan from marketing about her recommendations on the wording for the new features and get back to us before noon?"
When you make requests clearer upstream, you prevent performance issues downstream. So often, what looks like a performance problem is really a clarity problem.
When Feedback Gets Heated: Using Contrast Statements
Even with perfect setup, emotions can spike during feedback conversations. When feedback feels personal, the brain interprets it as a social threat. People make the same fundamental attribution error about themselves, hearing "you didn't do well on that project" and quickly conflating it with "you're saying I'm a bad worker or a bad person".
This is where contrast statements become essential. The structure is simple: First state what you don't mean, then contrast it with what you do mean.
Example: "I'm not saying you didn't put in real effort on that client presentation. What I am saying is I want to make sure your effort has the impact we need with that client going forward."
This structure matters because humans have a negativity bias, we latch onto the worst possible interpretation. A contrast statement names that negative interpretation, validates it, sets it aside, and then lands on what you actually mean. Sometimes you need to be even more explicit: "This is about a specific behavior in this particular situation. This is not about who you are as a person or how I think of you as an engineer contributing to our team."
During feedback, if emotions run high, don't push harder, clarify your intent. Keep things anchored in behavior because that's where people can hear you and grow from it.
Feedback vs. Accountability: Knowing the Difference
Not every difficult conversation is a feedback conversation. Dr. Nevarez offers a powerful distinction between feedback and accountability using one clarifying question: Was there a clear, achievable agreement that was missed?
Three words really matter here:
Clear: If the direction or expectation wasn't clear, it's hard to hold somebody accountable for that.
Achievable: Did the person have the skill, resources, or time? If not, that's tough to hold them accountable.
Agreement: This is different from an expectation, which is one-way. Agreement means both people knew and understood what success looked like.
If all three conditions are in place, you're probably in accountability territory. But the last thing you want to do is hold someone accountable for something that wasn't clear, wasn't achievable, and wasn't mutually agreed upon. That's how trust breaks down.
And if you hear yourself or others saying "we need to hold that person accountable" with emotion underneath, disappointment, frustration, or a sense of injustice, that's exactly when to pause and check those conditions before acting. Otherwise, you risk making an impulsive decision driven by the fundamental attribution error instead of moving toward your actual goal: increased ownership and accountability.
Feedback as a Mirror for Leadership Growth
Feedback conversations are about deepening your own growth as a leader. Every feedback conversation is actually two conversations: one with the person and one with yourself.
If you notice yourself hesitating to give feedback, that might reveal something about your own comfort with conflict or how much you value connection versus candor. If you tend to jump straight into problem-solving without listening, that could point to a need for control. When you slow down and try to understand someone else's perspective, you also learn about your own biases, the shortcuts you took in interpreting their behavior, and even the assumptions you make about what good performance looks like.
This is the real power of effective feedback: it transforms both the giver and the receiver. When you approach feedback with the principles Dr. Nevarez shares—behavioral clarity in the push phase, genuine curiosity in the pull phase, psychological safety throughout, and clear requests upstream you create opportunities for mutual growth that strengthen relationships and drive real performance improvement
Ready to take feedback mastery to the next level?
- To get practical tools and actionable tips that will jumpstart your journey, download the Feedback for Leaders Kick Starter Booklet here.
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- And if you’re looking to elevate your entire C-Suite leadership team, learn how Craig Dowden can help your leaders perform at their highest-level visit https://www.craigdowden.com/executive-mastermind
- For a deeper dive, listen to the full-length episode of the Do Good to Lead Well podcast featuring Wes Adams & Tamara Myles:
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