Dialogue: A Different Kind of Communication
Lisa Schirch & David Campt. The Little Book of Dialogue for Difficult Subjects: A Practical, Hands-On Guide, Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2007; 90 pages, ISBN: 978-1-56148-551-2: BACK COVER Who can’t recall an uncomfortable moment at a holiday gathering when conversation turned divisively to religion, politics, or current events? Or a time in a public meeting when tensions boiled over among attendees? Authors Schirch and Campt present a transforming and freshly hopeful approach to handling tension-filled topics using principles of dialogue. For conversations around the table, in the boardroom, within the community, or across the globe, “Dialogue allows people in conflict to listen to each other, affirm their common ground, and explore their differences in a safe environment.” This Little Book covers: * Dialogue vs. debate * Inviting people to a dialogue process * Key dialogue facilitation skills * When to use dialogue * Moving from dialogue to action * Assessing dialogue effectiveness Schirch has worked on conflict prevention and peace-building projects in more than 20 countries. Campt has focused on racial reconciliation and large-scale dialogue events in American cities. Many of the skills and the case studies they offer in this book come from their own wide experiences.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Defining Dialogue
2. How Does Dialogue Work?
3. When Is Dialogue Useful?
4. Organizing a Dialogue Process
5. Designing a Dialogue Process
6. Facilitating a Dialogue
7. Moving from Dialogue to Action
8. Assessing Dialogue Effectiveness
9. Dialogue for a New Century
Appendix: Tools for Enlarging the Conversation
Endnotes
Recommended Reading
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
We offer a joint thank you to Hope in the Cities (HIC) in Richmond, Virginia, who hired us to co-facilitate their series of dialogues on race, economics, and jurisdiction issues. The values and vision of HIC inspire us both and we are grateful for the opportunity to work with them.
Lisa: I would like to thank my students and colleagues at the Center for Justice & Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU). Over the last 10 years, as I have facilitated countless meetings on a variety of issues at EMU, my colleagues have offered helpful feedback to strengthen my facilitator skills. I have also learned a great deal by observing them facilitate dialogues on difficult subjects in which I was a participant. Along the way I’ve learned from them how to honestly own what I know and what I don’t know, what I am skilled at, and where I can improve. I’m grateful for those colleagues who have nurtured this self-knowledge.
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David: I would like to thank a collection of people, beginning with my numerous colleagues at America-Speaks, an organization that has given me the opportunity to develop my leadership skills. I’m convinced that I couldn’t have co-written this book without the stimulating feedback and encouraging fellowship of Cricket White, Manny Brandt, and Theo Brown. They have inspired me to do more and learn more in the areas of dialogue. I also offer special gratitude to Moniqie Fortenberry and Ngozi Robinson, who in their unique ways have helped me maintain my sanity while making progress. And finally, nothing in my life—especially my passion for dialogue—would have happened without my parents, James and Geraldine Campt.
1. Defining Dialogue
Most of us, if not all, can recall an uncomfortable moment at a holiday gathering when the conversation turned divisively to religion, politics, or current events. Or we have sat in a meeting or in a Sunday school class and felt tensions rising among participants. Is it just impossible for people to talk comfortably about some subjects?
Dialogue is a process for talking about tension-filled topics. It is useful for families, small groups, businesses, communities, organizations, and national and international conflicts.
Increasingly, people are seeing the need for better ways of talking. After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, community groups in various regions of the United States met to discuss that day’s impact on their lives and how they might work together to prevent retaliatory violence against Muslims in their community. Other communities are using dialogue to identify guiding values for city planning and development in rapidly growing regions. In still other places, people are using dialogue to help talk about religious differences on homosexuality, community problems like youth obesity, or racial divisions among community members. In war zones, diplomats are using dialogue to explore political solutions to end civil violence.
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These examples illustrate how people use dialogue to heal deep divisions or wounds from the past, avert impending violence, discuss an upcoming policy decision, or address a community challenge. People are turning to dialogue because other forms of communication fail to provide the structure or safety required for discussing difficult subjects. Dialogue helps people communicate with each other as they constructively search for creative solutions to community challenges. Dialogue is an important part of solving difficult problems and transforming relationships between adversaries.
Dialogue: A Different Kind of Communication
Definitions of dialogue abound. In popular usage, dialogue can include almost any type of verbal exchange. In Latin, dialogue refers to a conversation between two or more people, usually across lines of conflict or potential conflict. In this book, the term takes on a more specific definition.
| Dialogue aims to build relationships between people as they address a common concern. |
Dialogue is a communication process that aims to build relationships between people as they share experiences, ideas, and information about a common concern. It also aims to help groups take in more information and perspectives than they previously had as they attempt to forge a new and broader understanding of a situation.
One way to define dialogue is to contrast it with other important and commonly used communication styles. Dialogue is different from conversation, discussion, training or education, and debate.
In conversation, information and ideas flow between people for the primary purpose of self-expression. Persuasion, or changing another’s perspective or understanding, may not figure into the exchange. Unlike conversation, a specific goal of dialogue is to broaden participants’ understanding of a particular issue.
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In a discussion, information and ideas are exchanged in order to accomplish a specific task or to solve a problem. The intention of dialogue is not to accomplish a task, even though a dialogue process sometimes identifies follow-up tasks.
Training helps people learn something, usually by transferring knowledge from the trainer to the student. Learning also happens in dialogue, but not through a direct transfer. Dialogue helps people generate their own new collective understanding of a situation through
exchanges between participants.
Debate is like a contest in which there are winners and losers. The term “debate” conjures up many images: academics battling to intellectually outdo each other’s arguments, political candidates competing for votes, or heated exchanges between people at a dinner table. A culture of debate is pervasive in many places around the world. [1] In debate, participants listen to others to find what is wrong, incomplete, or otherwise flawed in their opponent’s statements. The intention is to identify those flaws, expose them, and poke holes in the opponent’s overall position. Many consider dialogue to be the opposite of debate.
Dialogue is a unique communication process because it focuses participants’ attention on listening for understanding. Dialogue works best when participants listen for what might be correct, true, and insightful about what others have stated. The listeners try to find ideas with which they can agree, and potentially combine those with their own ideas to build a larger truth than any side has on its own. The table on page 9 highlights some of the most essential differences between dialogue and debate.
Dialogue, in its purest sense, is different from other forms of communication. Yet other communication styles can have aspects of dialogue as well. Communication is fluid and often moves in and out of various modes. A good dialogue can have the loose nature of a conversation; the focused approach to learning of a training; or the heated passion, vigor, and even anger of a debate.
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While this book focuses on using dialogue with planning and intention, it is important to note that the essence of dialogue—respectful listening, learning, and sharing of experiences that shape our beliefs—can be adapted to almost any conversation involving two or more people. Accordingly, anyone can employ facilitation skills to steer a holiday dinner, meeting, or conversation away from antagonism and toward dialogue.
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