Dialogue in action

How does the power of dialogue to snap us out of our set ways of thinking or interpretation manifest itself?

Our set ways of thinking are progressed by typical patterns. The dialogue concept suspends assumptions to enable exploration of underlying thinking, provides a "container" in which interactions take place, and uses proprioceptive attention to enable a transformation in underlying patterns of thought.

To suspend assumptions means to recognize the source of thought and reflect on the underlying automatic process that gave rise to a particular conclusion. To correct or flx a problem (that could be a paradox) is to take a stance that is separate from it, that objectifies it, and that seeks to apply an analytic approach towards understanding it. While this approach is the essence of science, it is also limiting, especially if this is the only move one is able to make. A "dialogic stance" is one that moves in the direction of suspending both the immediate effort to correct a problem, and the very processes by which it becomes defined in a particular way. Its value lies in the possibility of dissolving problems before they appear by reframing experience.

To provide the container implies easing interactions and surfacing options to solve system problems, reducing the risk of participating, and legitimating inquiry into underlying images, norms and perceptions.  The purpose of the container is to enable participants to see, in effect, the water in which they have been swimming, so that they may influence it consciously.

To use proprioceptive attention is to apply a kind of mindful self-reflection that slows down thinking and opens the possibility for insight. It goes beyond reflection based in memory—in processing images and information that occurred in the far or recent past. They are accepted as literal and real. If we had the ability to connect them with the nature of our thoughts we would be able to see self-destructive thoughts, for example, and have some ability to control them. Typically we simply see our thoughts as emerging "from nowhere" and do not detect our own fingerprints on them.

The power of Dialogue

Knowledge is divided broadly into two categories: Tacit and Explicit. Explicit is that which can be put into words while Tacit is difficult to express but constitutes perhaps the substance of the communication on a subject. Isaac has written about the ability of Dialogue to access and express the tacit domain:

Just as the know-how people use to ride a bicycle cannot be stated, the knowledge people use to think, particularly to think collectively, is tacit. Our tacit ways of thinking govern how we formulate our views, deal with differences, pay attention, make causal connections: in short these tacit influences are like the operating software that govern the ways human beings perceive the world and take action in it. Incoherence in these tacit springs of experience leads people to create unintended effects when they act, and to remain unaware of the fact that they are actively participating in ways of thinking and acting that continue to produce these effects. People are in effect out of contact with the sources and impacts of their thinking and acting. As physicist David Bohm put it, "thought creates the world and then says, I didn't do it." One purpose of dialogue is to reestablish contact so that this tacit ground can be accessed, its impacts perceived, and its effects altered.

The Nature of the Force For Success And Failure

It is fascinating how physics applies to the mind. Newton proclaimed a body will continue in a straight line or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force. So a vicious force must act for failure to occur. I had explained the vicious force that leads us to folly and the organization to destruction in my blog of Feb 6^th, 2011: Transforming The Enterprise - 3 . If there is a natural vicious force then there had to be a natural virtuous force to guide us to what we want.

Senge presents the virtuous force as the gap between the Vision and the Reality or the Creative Tension. But that was not enough. What derailed this force? Why did it have to be organized? I had to go beyond Senge and that made me foray into academia. The journals had the answers but it took me 4 years to reach my conclusions.

The answer lay in paradox theory. Paradoxes are endemic to the act of organizing. It has been observed by Stewart Clegg: “most management practices create their own nemesis”. Academia has of course researched much beyond this statement and identified the paradoxes that arise. Understanding of the related tension leads to the nature of action necessary to resolve it. It became clear that paradoxes blur the vision. Their resolution was necessary for a clear vision so that the natural virtuous force could take effect.

The real satisfaction was the realization that both the Vicious and Virtuous forces are a produce of tension and dialogue was key to surfacing tension for constructive action. My breakthrough is a reliable means for dialogue.