"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master – that's all." (Looking-Glass 6.63-65)
As William Isaacs notes (Isaacs, 1993, p.24):
“Dialogue, the discipline of collective learning and inquiry, is a process for transforming the quality of conversation and the thinking that lies beneath it.”
Business as usual
Business as usual is a lot of busyness buzz. The buzz of:
- Meeting deliverables,
- Attending meetings,
- Taking decisions,
- Planning for the future, etc.
The nature of busyness is about continuous thinking and doing, with no time spent on coming up for air. In conversations, we share ideas that stem from our assessment of experience and the quick decision/idea thereof. These show up in conversations with others, in the different perspectives shared, where ideas collide with each other.
Partnering with executive teams
Partnering with executive teams, I have been experimenting with using a dialogic (coaching) process. This enables teams to:
- Create their collective understanding,
- Bring their whole in the form of (tacit) knowledge and intuition (honest conversations), and
- Be aware of the dynamics.
The enhanced collective understanding, engagement, and ownership enable aligned actions, thereby increasing the probability of success.
The need for new thinking
Given the changes, challenges, and uncertainty, teams need to find a new way of thinking together. This involves listening wholly, which means suspending the need to share what I want to say and truly listening to what is being said. This enables emergent learning and behavior through dialogues.
Coming together in dialogue involves:
- A respectful relationship with those with whom we are talking.
- Acknowledgment that each person has a right to their own truth and the intellectual capacity to make sense of their world.
- A willingness to examine our own thinking process to understand how we have reached the assumptions we hold.
- A willingness to hold our assumptions lightly.
- The courage and humility to speak our own truth.
- The acknowledgment that there can be no predetermined outcome of a dialogue.
- Recognition that our talking together must support both a moral purpose and a practical one.
"Dialogue is not so much a difference in technique or skills as it is a difference in relationship and humility."
(Nancy Dixon - https://www.nancydixonblog.com/2021/02/the-promise-of-dialogue.html)
