A+Conversation+with+a+Center,+Not+Sides

media type="youtube" key="p5r0kVreUZ0" height="315" width="420" Introductory video on Dialogue from John Stewart of "Bridges Not Walls"


 * Greg Forester --- Comm Issues for Leaders**
 * Workshop Essay: "A Conversation with a Center, Not Sides" by William Isaacs**

October 29, 2011


 * (Philadelphia, PA)** --- From birth, we are immersed in a culture that celebrates conflict rather than collaboration & compromise. No wonder then that the power of true dialogue is often misunderstood or lost within a world of all-or-nothing sports victories, ugly political debates, and violent conflict involving the subjugation of enemies.

The cost of such a paradigm is that contemporary humans suffer from unnecessary interpersonal conflict, disagreement, and argument...often carrying momentous consequences. Failure to engage in dialogue can lead to failed marriages, unemployment, poor grades and academic failure, as well as physical violence. Avoiding these kinds of things sounds like a good idea, so the next logical question surrounds the definition of dialogue.

Dialogue comes from the Greek "dia" and "logos," which mean, respectively, "through words/meaning." That is, true dialogue can be equated to collaborating with another party to create shared meaning that would have otherwise been impossible to create as a single person. Digging deeper into the literature, we find that dialogue really means being able to put aside differences and judgments, listening, and identifying common ground that eventually forms the basis for consensus and compromise...in other words, shared meaning.

William Isaacs' essay "A Conversation With a Center, Not Sides," lays out the more practical implications of failed dialogue in a brilliant anecdote, which describes how multiple levels of a business entity contribute to the failure of a large project. Despite statements to the contrary, the project ends up incurring massive cost overruns that are detrimental to the company. Leading to this debacle were the actions and communication practices of each group of stakeholders - finance managers, engineers, executive leadership. Obsessed with their own concerns, defensive about those of other departments, and untruthful about the project itself, all jointly contributed to ultimate failure. To counter such communication failures, Isaacs focuses on three levels of human interaction:


 * Capacity for New Behavior:** Isaacs introduces this point (confusingly) with the title Producing Coherent Actions. By producing coherent actions, Isaacs means ensuring our words and actions are consistent...or "coherent." Often individuals say they will do one thing, and know they will do another. This occurs because of various defensive emotions. "Of course, I can complete the project on time," we say, thinking "I can't believe she assigned this project this late in the semester, since I will probably fail."

When the inevitable failure occurs - regardless of intent - earlier words and actions are rendered incoherent. To counter this, we must learn to stay out of the trap of incoherence by learning Capacity for New Behavior (during interaction). He does not elaborate much further, but it appears he means we must learn to sense when our words and actions ar becoming coherent and "right the ship," so to speak through a new behavior (no professor, I cannot complete all of these projects by the end of the semester).


 * Lack of Coherence in Small Talk:**
 * (Imagine the guy on the left has cancer, & the guy on the right was laid off //today//):**

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 * Predictive Intuition:** Often the very constructs that surround us - co-workers, management, organizational structure, and external stakeholders - can nullify our best intentions to collaborate and create meaning with people with whom we interact and collaborate. When a certain co-worker or far-off organizational figure continually stymies our efforts, we need to learn to identify those forces, anticipate their interference, and neutralize it. Isaacs calls this Creating Fluid Structure of Interaction. For instance, we may know that a certain manager is going to interfere and halt collaboration on a certain project. Or we know that another team member is opposed to completing a project a certain way. In both cases, Isaacs advocates for anticipating the interference and neutralizing it, perhaps by communicating with the manager about the project or pursuing the project with a team member in a way that both of you will find acceptable.


 * Architecture of the Invisible:** When people interact - especially during controversial or emotionally charged conversations - many forces are at work, and many of them are directly involved in preventing the identification of common ground and the creation of shared meaning. One example is that many people go into a predictably difficult conversation in a defensive, anxious emotional state. In such a state, listening becomes very difficult, and the objective becomes defending one's position at all costs, including at the cost of listening to the other side. Also at play are judgments and stereotyping based upon past interaction with the counterparty or persons similar to the counterparty.

The end result is often complete and total failure in collaboration and compromise, and no real solution to the original problem. Good leaders, however, can learn to identify these emotions and work to neutralize them during key conversations, with people such as a significant other, supervisor, or professor. Learning to go into the dialogue in a better emotional state, and eliminate the effects of the "invisible architecture," should allow the leader to truly listen to the counterparty's position, which is the only possible way of identifying room for a potential compromise and acceptable solution.

Authenticity, Coherence at Play in the Office:

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