Examples of How Dialogue Can Be Incorporated into Work Processes

It is doubtful that, in most organizations, dialogue could immediately be part of the regularly scheduled Monday morning staff meeting. The norms for how people relate to each other, what they can and cannot say, who they are supposed to be, may be too strong to overcome. The problem, of course, is that it is difficult to put aside the power and mistrust that keeps people from engaging in dialogue in the first place. If everything but the talk stays the same—that is, who makes the decisions, who sets the limits, who has special access to knowledge—then how can people relate in a different way? It is, I think, too much to expect people to position dialogue on top of the existing structure and have it be unfeigned.

I am also skeptical dialogue can be promoted in the confines of a classroom or a retreat setting with any hope it will carry over to everyday work. Being in dialogue in the isolation of the classroom does not address or redress the many political and cultural issues that prevent people from being in dialogue in the worksite. Moreover, I am convinced that people do not need to “learn” to speak their own truth, that they already know how.

There appears, however, to be an emerging alternative. There are a number of new work processes that organizations are exploring, or inventing, that incorporate significant opportunities for dialogue—often in large-group settings. These include strategic search conferences, open space technology, real-time strategic change, and action-learning, to name a few of the most prominent. I want to refer to these collectively as forums. In each of these forums a kind of container or holding environment is created in which dialogue about critical organizational issues occurs over a period of several days. The purpose of these forums is not to engage in dialogue; rather dialogue is the vehicle through which work is examined and accomplished within the forum. That difference would appear to be an important one for organizational settings—that dialogue is a way of getting work done, not an end in itself.

Although critical work is accomplished, these forums are far from being “business as usual.” The container or holding environment that is created incorporates many of the elements of dialogue that are proposed by the five theorists discussed in this paper. Thus, the forums embody fundamentally different conditions from those in which people usually talk with each other. It is also important to note that the forums address a specific issue that is critical to the organization such as a problem that needs solving or a strategy that needs to be developed. They are not exercises or hypothetical situations but the real work of the organization. The dialogue that ensues is about issues that participants care about and in which they have considerable stake.

My intent here is not to advocate these particular forums but to use them to illustrate how organizations may be incorporating dialogue in a more acceptable way. (I have placed a brief description of each of the forums in Appendix A.) Although these forums vary greatly in terms of such elements as method and size, they share a number of conditions that make dialogue viable.

First, top management agrees, well before the event, to relinquish power to the forum to make changes; it is not a situation where the group makes recommendations that management may take under advisement. What legitimizes this empowerment of the group is that all of the knowledge that exists in the organization about the issue being addressed is invited into the room. Furthermore, all of the knowledge that is in the room is available to everyone. When everyone comes to know what everyone else knows about the issue, a delay to seek a wider or more informed view is no longer valid. A forum in which such an up-front agreement has been made represents a fundamental change in the distribution of power and control in the organization, albeit a temporary one.

Second, in these forums measures are taken to reduce the effects of hierarchy because such effects have an acknowledged tendency to limit dialogue. Most of the forums are facilitated not by management but by a “third party.” Often management does not play a central or visible role; there are no introductory speeches about the need to change or the importance of the task, and no closing remarks are made in appreciation of the effort of the troops. In some of these forums, management is not in the room at all; in others, management is present but has been coached to be parsimonious with its contributions. There is a strong component of self-management in the forums; process issues that arise are resolved in the small groups or in the total group. There are basic guidelines embodied in the structure of the forum (these vary with different types of forums) which are typically established at the beginning by consent of the whole, but these are often minimal and alterable. The diminished role of management and the focus on self-management significantly reduce the influence of status and rank and create an equality among participants that facilitates the dialogue.

Third, the assumption is made that the group that has come together is capable of both understanding and resolving the issue with which they are faced. There are no experts or consultants present to advise how the issue should be addressed. The necessary information and expertise, which are typically diverse, are embedded in the people in the room, who come from different parts of the organization and from multiple levels. Often customers and suppliers are invited, adding yet more diversity of perspective. It is the collective intelligence of the group, expressed through dialogue, that is sought as the source of new understanding. In referencing search conferences specifically, Weisbord (1992) said, “We believe the real world is knowable to ordinary people and their knowledge can be collectively and meaningfully organized. In fact, ordinary people are an extraordinary source of information about the real world” (p. 13). This willingness to trust in collective intelligence rather than “expert” opinion requires a major shift in thinking about where the “true” source of knowledge resides in organizations. In most organizations people are more comfortable with having experts construct an answer, although the need for everyone to discuss it and eventually “buy in” is acknowledged.

Fourth, these forums are often a mixture of small- and large-group interactions. The small groups provide the opportunity to participate that often does not exist in large groups. Yet the large group is critical to contain the sense of the whole. The alternation between small groups and the large group encourages individuals and functional groups to challenge, question, refute, and reflect and to hear others do the same. Yet the context is cooperative; there is an agreed-upon goal toward which the total group is striving and which the controversy serves. Forums occur over an extended period of time, often several days, allowing individuals to build the trust and respect for each other that can accommodate challenge. This mixture of challenge and cooperation may also represent a major shift in thinking from organizational norms in which questioning is considered resistance to change and challenge is acceptable only when it is directed downward.

I have called these forums a container and I think the figure is useful. It is as if people can experiment within this contained space; it is a place to try out things that are too risky to permit in day-to-day work. There is safety in the confines of the container where people agree to function differently but also agree to the time and space limits. Organizations may initially need these “contained” times and spaces where organizational members can experience what it is like to be in a different type of relationship with each other. Then, over time, perhaps the new way of talking, the new way of being with each other, can encroach into the day-to-day activities of the organization, so that the staff meeting or the planning meeting becomes more dialogic. If people can act in these “contained” spaces in ways that are more open and egalitarian, and if they can share power more fully, then, over time, the power and structure of the organization may shift and the organization may, in fact, develop.

These forums and techniques can lead to development of an organization by two means: first, by virtue of the content of the dialogue itself, and, second, by the nature of the interaction, which has the potential to alter the political and relationship structure of the organization.

With respect to the first means, the forums discussed here address a specific organizational issue. Through the dialogue that occurs, the collective intelligence of the organization is brought to bear on that issue. As Johnson and Johnson noted, the result is likely to be an understanding of the issue that is richer, more integrated, and more creative than any one individual or homogeneous group is likely to produce. This new understanding may lead to more productive actions and decisions. Additionally, each individual engaged in the dialogue is likely to come away with greater comprehension of the issue and thus a commitment to subsequent actions. I am proposing an outcome that is more complex than the truism that people will support what they have some say in. I suggest that it is not involvement that commits organizational members; rather it is (1) the engagement of their reasoning, (2) their mental wrestling with the complexity of the issue, and (3) the fuller understanding those mental processes produce that make the position arrived at more acceptable, regardless of whether it corresponds with one’s own. The organization develops through the new understandings that are borne of the dialogue.

With respect to the second means, dialogue changes the nature of the interaction. Through dialogue, individuals experience themselves in different political relationships with each other. Engaging in a forum in which power has been transferred to the collective can lay the foundation for the group to question the status quo in which the collective is not so empowered. Organizational members might reason: “Clearly this group, as a whole, understands this issue better than any single individual or single group, regardless of their position in the organization. Why are we empowered around this issue and not others that are equally critical to us? Perhaps addressing critical issues collectively should be the norm.”

Likewise, interacting as equals may lead organizational members to recognize that they are, in fact, equal in intellectual capability, reasoning, and knowledge and therefore that others have less right to special privileges or deference. They may come to question the basis which legitimizes others giving direction, receiving disproportional compensation, or withholding information.

Finally, self-managing the process of the forum may convince organizational members that they are capable of self-management in general and do not need experts or management to shepherd them through processes. They may come to believe in their own collective capability to design actions that lead to greater productivity and development.

The historical development of organizations has been in the direction of greater flexibility, adaptability, and ability to take into account a more comprehensive, and recently, a more global perspective. This development has come about through a consistent shift away from autocracy and bureaucracy and toward increased participation—a shift in the locus of power. As Peter Block (1993) said, “Often our focus on change is aimed at better communication, working as a team, meeting to decide how to cut costs, and giving recognition for exceptional contributions. These actions do not change the rules, they simply help us better adapt to the same game. For the game to change, hard currency has to change hands. In organizations, hard currency is rearranging who makes choices, who defines culture, who determines the measures, and who shares in the wealth” (p. 53). The forums discussed here allow organizational members to experience themselves in a different relationship with each other and with the whole of the organization; this opens the door to altering the fundamental power and structure in the organization.

I find the emergence of such forums a promising sign that our organizations are capable of becoming more dialogic. I am also encouraged that there seem to be a growing number of such forums in a variety of shapes and formats. However, I do not want to suggest that these forums are the only ways in which dialogue can emerge within organizations. There have certainly been other examples of organizational practices that point in the same direction—for instance, group meetings in which a “devil’s advocate” is regularly appointed or project teams which purposively include a naive member to ask the taken-for-granted questions. These techniques are far from being dialogue as it is described here, yet they show a direction, a growing intent in organizations to institutionalize dialogue.