I'd like to endorse Richard Holloway's suggestion that the newer theories
of dialog may be less valuable than older theories, and ask for an old
style dialectical challenge of his distinction between a time for dialog
and a time for action.
As I read the newer positions triggered by Peter Senge's Fifth Discipline,
the newer theories are David Bohm's version of Krishnamurti's version of
the Indian version of dialog as deep listening to the other, with all the
emphasis on hearing the other, appreciating the other, understanding the
other: no cross talk, no challenge, since cross talk and challenge are
not, in this version of dialog, dialog but "discussion," with that word's
echoing of "percussion."
This, of course, is a challenge in itself to older approaches to dialog:
the Socratic version, for one, which demonstrates the power of opposing
ideas to each other as a way of finding their strengths and weaknesses.
More recently, the philosopher Martin Buber made dialog the center of the
human experience: dialog is meeting, the genuine and heartfelt attempt to
meet the other on what Buber called "the narrow ridge." Life was a "way of
response," and my response to you might be silence, since I wanted to hear
more, or agreement, or challenge. In all cases, whether we agreed or
disagreed, we would be engaged with each other, living the life that Buber
called I=Thou rather than the I-It relationship, in which you became a
force or a problem, but not a person.
Richard suggests that the purpose of dialog is singular: the search for
meaning. And he then posits that those meanings had better be shared
beforehand, so that when action was needed it emerged from previously
shared meaning.
A broader notion of dialog suggests, to use Michael Schrage's term, that
dialog is about "shared minds," and sharing minds can include sharing
knowledge as well as meaning, sharing talents as well as meaning, sharing
ideas and possinbilities.
In such a view dialog and action are not distinct episodes but a regular
oscillation in the life of an organization.
Thus: we are a sales organization, selling a certain product for a certain
price to certain customers.
A competitor comes out with a new product that threatens our survival.
In the nondialogical organization the assumption might be that leadership,
the top of the hierarchical pyramid, decides what to do--and if there
truly is no time for reflection and dialog that may at times be necessary.
In the dialogical organization the leader realizes that he may not have
the right answer, or any answer at all, and that in any case the answer is
useless if it is not absorbed, internalized, and then acted on by those
who have to encounter the challenge in the marketplace.
The leader, then, calls a meeting, and the dialog begins. The dialog is in
this view the necessary beginning of all action.
Steve Eskow
--"Dr. Steve Eskow" <dreskow@magicnet.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>