Why did I read this book?
Dialogue is at the heart of our practices here in Tiimiakatemia Prague. Everything we do revolves around our dialogue sessions. It is the go-to tool for sharing and creating new knowledge in our teams and community. We try to follow the principles, that dialogue stands on and evolve through it. I am saying „try to“, because many times we forget to follow one of those four principles and „rules“ - Listening, Respecting, Voicing and Suspending. Dialogue and the art of thinking together is a must-read for everyone working with other people. Unfortunately, I did not read in my first year in TAP, I could have been more effective in gaining and spreading knowledge. On the other hand, reading it now allows me to reflect on how well dialogue was passed to me by others and how well we did and do practice it. Also with three years of additional knowledge, I believe I reached a deeper understanding of the book.
Notes from the book
Listening
You may think, that you listen to everybody that speaks, but that is not true, mostly we just hear what people are saying - one ear in, one ear out. Or at most, we react to what they said, usually immediately after they said it. That is not what listening is about. Listening in Dialogue means hearing what others say and trying to truly understand it. Sticking to facts, thinking about the meaning of what was said rather than about what I will say next. Probably the most important - never creating assumptions and listening to what different voices have to say.
You can ask yourself or others: How does this feel? How is what is being said affecting people? What are the different voices trying to convey?
Respecting
Without respecting others and their opinions and statements there would be no dialogue. Simply because dialogue requires all the voices to try to understand the other's point of view. Respecting also means the way people conduct themselves while talking - no interruptions, no distractions like checking your phone and other „rules“ of respectful behaviour.
Suspending
I believe, that respecting is perhaps the most important of the four. It is the ability to contain our own opinions, and emotions and open our minds to other solutions. You do this to accept information without bias and be able to look past the quick emotional response we are „programmed“ to give. In my view, this is the most difficult skill to master - suspension of our internal point of view. Ask yourself What am I missing? How does the problem work? Is something that can help you to stop, take a step back and not immediately jump into working out quick solutions.
Voicing
You should always have the main question of voicing in the back of your mind: "What needs to be expressed now?“. Voicing is not about expressing what you want to say to satisfy yourself, but rather about what needs to be said to move forward. It requires you to listen carefully and understand what is being said.
Questions to ask: If I don’t speak my voice, who will? What do I want to be known for? What needs to be expressed now?
4 roles in Dialogue
Mover
Sets a direction, follows and controls discipline, and seeks perfection and clarity. Moves the dialogue forward.
Follower
He seeks completion and compassion, is loyal, and wants continuity.
Opposer
Watches facts and is not afraid to correct others. Wants integrity from others and also protects them.
Bystander
Do not think that bystanders are passive. On the contrary. They observe from a distance and think more complexly about what is being said.
Fields of Dialogue
Dialogue has fields, or if you want levels, that we are (or are not) able to reach. It depends on how skilled and experienced are we in using dialogue rules. This takes time and usually only high-performance teams can reach the fourth level of Generative dialogue. What caught my eye is the use and perception of silence in each field as your team develops.
I believe, that our team is in between the Dabete and Inquiry phases because sometimes silence feels very tense and other times silence is a sign of deep reflection within each of us.
ATP
Our Dialogue developed quality over the two and a half years. The biggest factor in that is in my view the fact, that we settled and accepted our roles and the roles of others in dialogue. You can recognise, who is a mover, opposer, follower and bystander in most situations.
But lately, perhaps because we do not have Training Sessions as often, we veered off the good dialogue practices and had to reflect and remind ourselves of what it is about. Respecting became a real issue - it was almost non-existent, so we introduced a no phone policy, planned our topics together and very often to ensure the interest of everyone in the topic, and provided feedback to each other to clean our underlying issues (that is long race as always). Since then the quality of TS went up and we were able to explore topics deeper.
