Invite a response after delivering SBI

Close SBI by asking what the other person makes of it — not with a verdict.

Why it works

Feedback delivered as a monologue leaves the receiver in a passive, one-down position that blocks genuine reflection. Opening space for response activates the receiver’s sense of agency and turns the conversation into a dialogue, which is essential for accurate two-way calibration: you may have the situation, behavior, or impact wrong, and a response gives you the data to correct this.

How to do it

1. After the impact statement, pause and ask: "What’s your take on this?" or "Is that how you saw it?"
2. Listen without immediately defending your observation — their perspective is data.
3. If they disagree on a point, revisit the specific situation before restating your view.

Evidence

Dialogic feedback models outperform monologic feedback in reducing defensiveness and increasing behavior change in educational and workplace settings, consistent with autonomy-support and two-way communication research. (clinical)

The underlying autonomy-support research is robust; direct comparisons of SBI-with-response versus SBI-without-response as isolated conditions are not available.

Common mistake

Asking "Does that make sense?" instead of a genuine open question — it signals you want agreement, not their actual perspective, and shuts dialogue down.