by Carol J. Sutton APR, Fellow CPRS
"The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained." Dr. David Bohm1
Most workplace conversations usually focus on transferring information, or persuading or commanding another person – "how to’ instructions, "do it my way", "I’m right and you’re not" – based on where we fall in the organization’s chain of command. This is the way of the world: Take a position and hold it against all comers.
Suppose there was another way, one in which people agreed to share understanding and make meaning that would benefit all. What might that be like? That’s the premise inherent in the deliberate practice of dialogue. It incorporates story-telling and then goes beyond to create a place where it is safe to be who we are, in community.
According to Richard Ross in "The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook" (by Senge, Ross, et al), "The primary difference between dialogue and skilful discussion involves intention. In skilful discussion, the team intends to come to some sort of closure – to make a decision, reach agreement, or identify priorities. Along the way, the team may explore new issues and build some deeper meaning among the members. But their intent involves convergent thinking.
"In dialogue the intention is exploration, discovery, and insight which, in contrast to discussion, may involve divergent thinking. Along that path, the group may in fact sometimes come to a meeting of the minds and reach some agreement, but that isn't their primary purpose in coming together."
A detailed examination of two recent strategic communication management programs in Canada show a strong resemblance to the process now called "dialogue", both within the organization and in the wider, external world.
These examples come from the Farm Credit Corporation and the Nova Scotia Community College2; the concept grows from the work of Edgar H. Schein3, one of the original masters of organization development, whose work takes us into dialogue as a way of transforming the organization.
High performance not enough
After some diligent work on its organizational culture a few years ago, Farm Credit Canada was puzzled: They found themselves with a high performance culture that was rapidly burning people out.
Says Claire Watson, Director, Corporate Communication and Translation: "The Hewitt ’50 Best Companies to work for in Canada survey gave us some feedback that was a real shock: 81% of our employees said ‘we are passionate about high performance’, yet only 62% felt that our reward/recognition system worked to ‘produce business results’.
"In addition, only 59% of our employees found senior management to be "open and honest" and just 54% said they were ‘accessible’. However, 71% agreed that the senior group ‘provides clear direction’."
The gap between the senior levels’ scores and those of the folks in the trenches was distressingly high – up to 53% in some categories. "The well-paid, professionals on whom we depend so deeply – who form bulk of our organization – told us they were working flat out, but were not truly ‘engaged’ in the life of the organization," says Ms Watson.
In fact, Farm Credit Canada’s overall corporate engagement score was only 69%, which placed them last among Hewitt’s Canada’s 50 Best Employers. That was a big eye-opener for an organization that felt it already had made major improvements in its systems and culture.
What to do? For Farm Credit Canada, the response was go deeper, to become the change they wanted to see. That included senior management modeling good communication and walking the talk – at both the personal and corporate levels.
To align words and actions and thereby create a new reality, Farm Credit Canada realized they need to make private conversations public. In other words, to create dialogue. They focused and integrated clear, consistent messages in all they did, both big picture and close up communication.
"We realized that we had to communicate more through our way of being than our words,"says Ms Watson. Their research supported this move: some 10% of communication may be accounted for in process and systems, another 10% in formal media and a massive 80% in how people behave with one another.
"Create, connect, inspire," says Ms Watson. "It’s part of everything we do."
They chose strategies and images to connect with employees – just as an organization does with its customers and external audiences – and wisely cherry-picked elements that communication can influence.
Another year passed and subsequent Hewitt scores showed Farm Credit Corporation in 35th place among Hewitt’s "50 Best Companies". Business results include a three-fold increase in portfolio value ($12 B from $4B; a seven-fold increase in earnings; 50%+ of business coming from new products; turnover down, loyalty up and fully 20% of market share in their court. Not bad for the power of dialogue.
Turning consultation into dialogue
Where discussion generally contrasts opinions and leads to dissonance among the participants, dialogue asks people to "suspend" their own opinions and judgments so that something new may be created by the group. Putting the ego aside and getting out of one’s own way are not exactly easy things to do. In fact, to make this work, an organization has to be willing to change both its mind and resulting actions.
Michelle Lane, Director of Marketing and Communications, Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) tells a story of that organization’s transformation through dialogue. To meld 13 disparate schools into one cohesive college, they implemented a strategic communication model comprising consultation, collaboration and consistency.
"This process took us from turf wars five years ago to inspired individuals within each of the College’s 13 campuses. Today, staff see the value of the College for all Nova Scotians," Ms Lane says.
The starting point was consultation – engaging in conversations that matter. That’s where Ms Lane’s warning emerges: "If you are going to consult, be prepared to hear what people are really saying to you and to change course." Sounds like a very good summary of Dr. Jim Grunig’s two-way symmetrical communication model to me.
Nova Scotia Community College’s techniques included targeted public consultations; surveys; internal discussion groups; regional college conferences; creation of a broad-based Steering Committee and the Board of Governors. They also went inside, across all 13 campuses to conduct similar activities that would result in a master plan. The internal framework included mini-summits facilitated by an internal team; initial briefings on each campus; feedback mechanisms; a consultation steering committee, and campus-wide consultations.
After first consultation, NSCC moved on some of the points in their initial position and took this new consciousness into the second consultation. After that, collaboration, became a way of doing business.
The Nova Scotia Community College process integrated consultation and collaboration, and its internal and external strategies because inside and outside shared many of the same elements. This included their community partners themselves, often graduates now successful in business and other arenas, who became NSCC champions and ambassadors.
Through these means, the College has built a platform for consistency between words and actions to speak with one voice. Today, the College’s local needs in each of their 13 campus communities inform provincial strategies and vice versa. I call that dialogue by another name.
How to conduct dialogue
The foundation for creating dialogue will sound very familiar to anyone who engages in conflict resolution work:
Some of the skills recommended for a successful dialogue include
As a result, behaviours, interactions and attitudes all may be altered to create community and transform an organization’s culture.
In "Dialogue - A proposal"4 David Bohm, Donald Factor and Peter Garrett tell us that "Dialogue is not a new name for T-groups or sensitivity training, although it is superficially similar to these and other related forms of group work.
"Its consequences may be psychotherapeutic but it does not attempt to focus on removing the emotional blocks of any one participant nor to teach, train or analyze. Nevertheless, it is an arena in which learning and the dissolution of blocks can and often do take place. It is not a technique for problem solving or conflict resolution, although problems may well be resolved during the course of a Dialogue, or perhaps later, as a result of increased understanding and fellowship that occurs among the participants. It is, as we have emphasized, primarily a means of exploring the field of thought.
"Dialogue resembles a number of other forms of group activity and may at times include aspects of them but in fact it is something new to our culture. We believe that it is an activity that might well prove vital to the future health of our civilization."
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