Dialogue As a Tool for Teams

Did you know that the word discussion stems from the Latin discutere, which means "to smash to pieces"? Traditional discussion, therefore, can be seen as a form of conversation oriented toward advocacy that promotes fragmentation. People discuss to "win." It is a dismal way to conduct teamwork, not just because it undermines cooperation, but because ideas and solutions rarely get the consideration they deserve.

Contrast this with dialogue, which comes from two Greek roots, dia (meaning "through" or "with each other") and logos (meaning "the word"). It carries a sense of "meaning flowing through." The key is getting the group to purposefully adopt a spirit of inquiry instead of the typical advocating for a certain point of view. In a dialogue the team is asked to pay attention to the assumptions taken for granted that underlie their points of view. Dialogue is a proven strategy for stepping back from individualism and developing an environmenta container or field of inquiryto pull together collective assumptions, shared intentions, and the beliefs of a group.

If dialogue can be defined as "a sustained collective inquiry into everyday experience and what we take for granted" (Senge et al., 1998), its goal is to break new ground by establishing a setting that enables people to become more aware of the context around their experience, and of the processes of thought and feeling that created the experience. If your team discussions seem to be turning into complaint sessions, where members don't seem to be gaining any useful insights, you might want to arrange for a dialogue session as refined by Senge et al., summarized as follows .

The team sits in a circle and shares their points of view while examining aloud the assumptions underlying their perspectives. The facilitator makes it clear what is to be the subject matter of the dialogue. All members are allowed to "check in," that is, to state how they feel entering this session and a brief summary of their point of view. Only one person at a time is allowed to speak, and all must speak to the center of the circle as if they were depositing their wisdom into a container. After the check-in, a device is used to control who can speak: the speaker must have possession of the "talking stick." This idea is borrowed from a Native American tradition, where the council of elders literally passed around a stick that determined who was to speak as all the others listened. Your team can use a tennis ball or a pen or any device to serve as your talking stick. Group members can nonverbally signal that they would like to speak next and receive the talking stick. A teammate might pass the stick to another hoping that he or she will take the opportunity to speak on the topic.

People must be given the choice to participate, and the rest of the team must pay close attention to what is said and what is meant . Dialogue encourages people to suspend their assumptions, to refrain from imposing their views on others, and to avoid suppressing or holding back what they think. The word suspension means "to hang in front." Hanging your assumptions in front of you so that you and others can reflect on them is a delicate and powerful art. It means exploring assumptions from new angles: bringing them forward, making them explicit, giving them considerable weight, and trying to understand where they came from.

Stages of Dialogue

Briefly, the three stages of dialogue are surfacing assumptions, displaying assumptions, and inquiry, where you invite others to see the new dimensions in what you are thinking and saying. Part of the value of suspending assumptions is honoring the passion that underlies each participant's viewpoint while refusing to allow that passion to become a roadblock Do not ask anyone to give up their views, allow one view to be imposed on the team, or expect team members who disagree with the prevailing wisdom to remain quiet. The assumptions hang in front of the room, available for all to question and explore. Suspending assumptions is difficult. Differences must be celebrated rather than overcome . The group needs to develop an excitement for learning how different people came to a different understanding of the same things (Senge et al., 1998).

A dialogue session, which should last for at least an hour , allows team members to agree to disagree. It is not intended to solve problems or help members reach decisions, but rather to provide team members the luxury of examining an issue in depth. It encourages deep thinking and feeling but not convincing each other of anything. The hope is that the sharing will produce collective wisdom. As leader, you must help your team understand the purpose and procedures of dialogue. You might arrange a problem-solving or planning session to follow a dialogue after sufficient time has passed to reflect and learn from it. A dialogue session is a powerful communication tool that helps a team experience a balance between inquiry and advocacy in its efforts to deal with the issues it faces.

Closing the Dialogue

As leader, you need to declare when the dialogue session is over. This should be determined either by a preset time limit or the recognition that the energy of the group is so low that new comments are not surfacing. Generally speaking, you should gain a commitment to hold a series of dialogues (at least three) before asking the group whether it wants to continue to use this method or abandon it. It is important to identify what the members gained from the session. Have a flip chart or a white board available for this purpose. What are the lessons learned from the collective wisdom they generated? Remember, this is not a tool to be used to convince people what is right or what is wrong, but a means to focus on what everyone learned about the issue and especially what they learned by examining the assumptions underlying their perspectives.