On Dialogue

It is harder to become engaged in than one may think, as there is very often more of an attempt at debate, as this article from Nonprofit Quarterly notes.

An excerpt.

“The act of collaboration must start with dialogue. You cannot build relationships without having an understanding of your potential partners, and you cannot achieve that understanding without a special form of communication that goes beyond ordinary conversation. Long-time observer of the American public Daniel Yankelovich shares with us his analysis of what dialogue is and how to do it.

“Most people have two purposes for doing dialogue: to strengthen personal relationships and to solve problems. Both of these are crucial to collaboration. But what is dialogue, and what can it do for us that other ways of talking cannot?

“Webster defines the purpose of dialogue as "seeking mutual understanding and harmony." I put less emphasis on harmony than the dictionary does, because the outcome of dialogue is not always harmony. In fact, as a consequence of dialogue you may come to understand why you disagree so vehemently with someone else; there will be better understanding but not necessarily more harmony.

“In philosopher Martin Buber's classic work I and Thou, Buber suggests that in authentic dialogue something far deeper than ordinary conversation goes on. In Buber's philosophy, life itself is a form of meeting and dialogue is the "ridge" on which we meet. In dialogue, we penetrate behind the polite superficialities and defenses in which we habitually armor ourselves. We listen and respond to one another with an authenticity that forges a bond between us. The act of reaching beyond the self to relate to others in dialogue is a profound human yearning. If it were less commonplace, we would realize what a miracle it is.

“Doing dialogue takes special skills that most Americans do not yet possess. Effortless dialogue among people who think alike still does exist--but the cohesiveness of people who have grown into a shared worldview through a long-enduring relationship is increasingly rare.

“All practitioners of dialogue emphasize that debate is the opposite of dialogue. The purpose of debate is to win an argument, to vanquish an opponent. Dialogue has very different purposes--it's about exploring common ground. Dialogue is also different from discussion. Like discussion, dialogue can take place among a larger group than two people. But three distinctive features of dialogue differentiate it from discussion or other forms of talk. They are:”

“1. Equality and the absence of coercive influences. Mixing people of unequal status and authority does not necessarily preclude dialogue, but it makes it more difficult to achieve. Dialogue becomes possible only after mutual trust has been built and the higher-ranking people have, for the occasion, removed their badges of authority and are participating as true equals.

“2. Listening with empathy. The gift of empathy--the ability to think someone else's thoughts and feel someone else's feelings--is indispensable to dialogue. This is why discussion is more common than dialogue: people find it easy to express their opinions and to bat ideas back and forth with others, but most of the time they don't have either the motivation or the patience to respond empathically to opinions with which they may disagree or that they find uncongenial.

“3. Bringing assumptions into the open. Unexamined assumptions are a classic route to misunderstandings and errors of judgment. Dialogue requires that participants be uninhibited in bringing their own and other participants' assumptions into the open, where, within the safe confines of the dialogue, others can respond to them without challenging them or reacting to them judgmentally.”