Breakfast of Champions
Frame feedback with: I am giving you these comments because I have high expectations of you and I am confident you can reach them. Research shows this framing makes feedback 40% more effective.
Structure
Setup
Participants work in pairs. Each pair identifies a specific piece of feedback one of them needs to give the other - or the facilitator provides a structured feedback scenario. The feedback should be real and substantive: a genuine development area, a specific behavioral change, a performance gap.
Phase 1: Framing Before Feedback
Before delivering the feedback, the giver says the Breakfast of Champions frame aloud:
"I am giving you this feedback because I have high expectations of you and I am confident you can reach them."
This is not optional or performative - it must be said genuinely. The giver should mean it before they say it.
Phase 2: The Feedback
The giver delivers the feedback clearly and specifically - not softened, not buried in positives, but honest and direct.
Phase 3: Receiver Response
The receiver responds without explaining or defending. They may ask a clarifying question. They summarize what they heard.
Phase 4: Role Reversal
Partners switch and repeat with the second piece of feedback.
Group Debrief
The full group discusses: what changed when you added the frame? What made it easier or harder to receive?
Timing
15-20 minutes including debrief.
How to Teach It
How to Explain It
"Before you give any feedback in this exercise, say these words: 'I am giving you this feedback because I have high expectations of you and I am confident you can reach them.' Say it and mean it. Then give the feedback. We'll see what changes."
Why It Matters
Psychological research (Yeager, Cohen, and colleagues) demonstrates that this specific framing increases feedback effectiveness significantly, particularly in contexts where the receiver might doubt the giver's intentions. The frame works because it addresses two common receiver concerns simultaneously: "Does this person believe in me?" and "Is this feedback about my fixed limitations or my possible growth?" By making both answers explicit before the feedback lands, the frame changes the register of the conversation from evaluation to investment. The exercise trains both sides of a feedback conversation - learning to say the frame authentically (givers must believe it), and learning to receive direct feedback within a context of trust (receivers get to experience what that feels like).
Common Coaching Notes
- The frame must be genuine. If a giver says the words cynically or mechanically, the receiver will hear the cynicism. Spend time before the exercise asking givers: "Do you actually believe this person can reach the standard you're holding? If not, why not?"
- Feedback must be direct. The frame is not permission to be soft. If anything, it creates more responsibility for honest feedback. "You could try being more..." is not feedback. "Your presentations run long and lose the audience in the second half" is.
- Debrief the receiver experience. Ask: how did the feedback land differently with the frame? What would have been different without it?
Debrief Questions
- What changed in the feedback conversation when the frame was included?
- As a receiver, how did you experience the frame?
- Where in your organizational context could this frame change the quality of performance conversations?
In Applied Settings
Organizational Context
Breakfast of Champions directly addresses the feedback gap that exists in most organizations: feedback is structurally required but psychologically avoided, because the conditions for feedback to be both honest and received well are rarely in place simultaneously. Applied improv provides the experiential practice to make honest, trusted feedback a buildable skill rather than a personality trait.
Research Foundation
The specific framing ("I have high expectations of you and I am confident you can reach them") is drawn from psychological research on wise feedback interventions, most prominently work by David Yeager and Geoffrey Cohen. Their studies, particularly in educational contexts, found that this framing reduced the defensive processing that typically accompanies critical feedback and increased recipients' engagement with and use of the feedback received. The effect was particularly pronounced among participants from groups that are historically under-trusted in the environment. This research foundation makes the exercise unusually credible in professional development contexts where participants expect evidence-based practice.
Workplace and Leadership Applications
The exercise is most valuable in organizations where feedback culture is explicitly a development priority: post-360 review programs, leadership development cohorts, team retrospectives, and coaching skill-building workshops for managers. In these contexts, the exercise provides a concrete format that participants can apply immediately to real feedback situations. The simplicity of the intervention - one sentence, said genuinely, before any feedback conversation - makes it immediately usable rather than requiring a complete behavioral change.
Team and Meeting Culture
Beyond formal performance conversations, the Breakfast of Champions frame can become a team norm: a signal that the feedback being offered comes from investment rather than evaluation. Teams that adopt this norm consistently report improved quality of peer feedback and greater willingness to surface concerns early, before they become performance issues. Participants and leaders benefit equally from the practice of making their positive intent explicit before offering direct observations.
Skills Developed
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Related Exercises
I Like. I Wish. What If?
I Like, I Wish, What If is an applied feedback framework drawn from design thinking practice and used in applied improv contexts as a structured tool for giving constructive, forward-looking feedback on work in progress. Rather than open-ended critique, feedback is organized into three channels: what is working (I Like), what could be developed (I Wish), and generative possibilities (What If). The framework balances appreciation and aspiration, reducing the defensiveness that unstructured feedback often produces.
Benefit of the Doubt
An exercise in choosing to assume positive intent from others. Participants practice reframing situations where they might normally assume the worst about a colleague's behavior.
Blocked Vs. Unblocked Scenes
Blocked Vs. Unblocked Scenes is a comparative exercise in which performers play the same scene twice: once using denial and blocking, and once fully accepting every offer. The side-by-side contrast vividly demonstrates how blocking kills momentum while acceptance generates possibilities. It is one of the most effective tools for teaching the principle of agreement.
Argue like a Philosopher
Partners practice constructive argumentation following philosophical principles, exploring how to disagree productively while maintaining respect.
Stop. Start. Continue.
Ask someone what they want you to stop doing, start doing, and continue doing. Structures feedback in a balanced, actionable way.
Feedback
Feedback is an applied improv exercise in which participants construct conversations and letters one word at a time, practicing the principles of constructive feedback delivery and reception through a collaborative word-at-a-time structure. The constraint removes defensive preparation and forces participants to co-create the feedback conversation in real time, revealing the habits, avoidances, and instincts that govern how feedback is actually given and received in professional settings.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Breakfast of Champions. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/breakfast-of-champions
The Improv Archive. "Breakfast of Champions." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/breakfast-of-champions.
The Improv Archive. "Breakfast of Champions." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/breakfast-of-champions. Accessed March 17, 2026.
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