Latest / New Manager Conversations with Fexingo: First 90 Days, Managing Former Peers, and Leadership Basics / Giving Feedback to a Direct Report Who Resists It
Transcript
- Lucas: If you're a new manager, the hardest conversation you'll have in your first ninety days isn't the budget review or the status update. It's giving feedback to someone who doesn't want to hear it. Luna: Right — the direct report who pushes back, or worse, just goes silent. I think every manager has at least one of those. Lucas: Exactly. I want to anchor this episode in a specific story. I was talking to a new engineering manager at a mid-sized manufacturing company — call her Priya. She took over a team of six, and one of her senior engineers, a guy named Mark, was incredibly competent — best output on the team — but he had a habit of shipping code with zero documentation. Luna: I can already see where this is going. She needed to tell him to document his work, but he probably saw it as bureaucracy. Lucas: Exactly. The first time Priya brought it up — gently — Mark said, 'The code speaks for itself. Anyone who can't read it shouldn't be on the team.' She backed off. Then two weeks later, the same issue: a bug fix with no notes, and the QA team spent three hours reverse-engineering it. Priya brought it up again, and Mark got defensive: 'You're micromanaging. I'm the most productive person on this team.' Luna: And that's the trap — he's not wrong about his output. But the behavior still hurts the team. So what did she do? Lucas: She stalled for six weeks. She told herself it wasn't that big a deal, that his output justified the friction. But then another engineer on the team — a junior — started copying Mark's habits, and the QA lead came to Priya frustrated. That's when she realized the cost wasn't just time; it was team culture. Luna: That's the hidden multiplier of unchecked behavior. It spreads. So how did she finally have the conversation? Lucas: She used a framework called SBI — Situation, Behavior, Impact. It's not new, but it's powerful because it takes the emotion out. She set up a fifteen-minute one-on-one, no surprises. She said, 'Mark, in last week's sprint — situation — when you submitted code for the inventory module with no comments — behavior — the QA team spent three hours figuring out your logic, and it delayed the release candidate by a day. That's the impact.' Luna: Clean. No 'you always,' no 'you never.' Just the facts. How did Mark react? Lucas: He started to argue — said the QA team should be able to read code. But because Priya had named a specific situation and a specific behavior, she could hold the frame. She said, 'I hear you, but the impact was a one-day delay. I need documentation going forward. Can you commit to that?' He hesitated, then said yes. No fireworks. Luna: It sounds simple, but I know from experience it's not. My first management role was at a small creative agency, and I had a designer — brilliant, but chronically late to client meetings. My boss at the time told me to give him feedback using the 'sandwich method' — positive, negative, positive. So I said, 'Hey, your work is amazing, but you need to be on time, and by the way, that last campaign was great.' He heard none of it. He just felt manipulated. Lucas: The sandwich method is one of the most persistent myths in management. Research from the Center for Creative Leadership shows that when you sandwich criticism between praise, the listener remembers either the praise or the criticism, not both — and they often feel patronized. Luna: So what's the alternative? Because I think a lot of new managers default to the sandwich because they're afraid of being harsh. Lucas: The alternative is to separate praise and feedback entirely. You don't have to balance them in the same conversation. If you see great work, recognize it in a separate moment — a quick message, a public shout-out. And when you need to correct a behavior, you just do it directly, with SBI. The key is to make the feedback about the behavior, not the person. Luna: Right. And I think a lot of managers worry that if they give critical feedback, the relationship will sour. But the opposite is often true. Lucas: Absolutely. A study by the Society for Human Resource Management found that employees who receive regular, candid feedback are almost four times more likely to be engaged than those who don't. The risk isn't in giving feedback; it's in withholding it. Luna: So what about the employee who is really resistant — like, they shut down or argue every time? Is there a different playbook? Lucas: You have to name the pattern. I've seen managers have a meta-conversation: 'I notice that when I give you feedback, you often push back or go quiet. I want to be able to help you grow, but I need to know how you prefer to receive feedback.' That can disarm the defensiveness. Luna: I like that — it's collaborative. You're not attacking; you're asking for a solution. Lucas: Exactly. And if the resistance continues, you escalate to consequences. But that's a separate conversation. For most new managers, the win is just having the first conversation before the problem gets too big. Luna: Which raises a good question: how soon should a new manager give feedback? Should you wait until you've built rapport? Lucas: I'd say don't wait. If you see a behavior on day one that's going to be a problem, address it on day one — or at least within the first week. The longer you wait, the more the behavior becomes normalized, and the harder the conversation becomes. Plus, your direct report will wonder why you didn't bring it up sooner. Luna: True. And there's something about early feedback that sets a norm: 'We talk about performance openly here.' That's valuable. Lucas: Exactly. So to bring it back to Priya and Mark — after that first SBI conversation, Mark did start documenting. Not perfectly, but he improved. And Priya made a point to thank him when he did it well. That reinforcement was key. Luna: So the takeaway: use SBI, drop the sandwich, address it early, and separate praise from correction. Anything else? Lucas: One more: always practice the conversation out loud. Even just once. It forces you to strip out the softeners and the tangents. Priya told me she rehearsed her SBI sentence three times before she walked into Mark's office. That made all the difference. Luna: I think I need to start doing that myself. Alright — good stuff. That's all we have time for today. Lucas: One thing to think about between now and next time: What's one piece of feedback you've been putting off, and what's the first sentence of that conversation if you use SBI? Luna: I like that. See you next time.