Dialogic Engagement
An introduction to Dialogue & dialogic communication via facilitated experiential learning
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How do people talk and think together in your teams, groups or organisation?
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What are the routines in these interactions?
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What is the impact of these habits on your effectiveness, creativity & fulfilment?
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Are there too many irrelevant speeches, arguments and opinion and not enough diversity of input, relationship building and explanation or understanding?
There is a different way of working together...
Explore this territory with peers from different contexts
Discover the structure & dynamics of different Modes of Engagement
Learn to see what is happening in a way that enables you to make effective choices in how you talk and think with other people to bring about change.
We introduce seven different Modes of Engagement that are needed to achieve different outcomes at work, home or in your community. This includes Dialogue, which is unfamiliar to most people, and essential for complex, ambiguous multi stakeholder situations. We also consider the attention and skill required to do each Mode well, and the common ways they are done badly.
Each of the Modes is engaged in a participatory way - the more enquiry and self-discovery, the easier it will be later to recall what you learned. We also talk about them, drawing on past experiences, and explore their relevance in your situation. You will be able to reflect on your personal habits, and the culture of communication in your team, organisation or groups, and consider the choices you have about how to engage with other people.
At school we are taught basic skills, like how to read and write (literacy), and how to count (numeracy). Surprisingly, we are not taught how to talk and think together (articulacy). We just pick that up from those around us, and we probably seldom stop to review how good we are at talking and thinking with other people. Yet our success, and that of our organisations and communities, is dependent on how well people talk and think together. When we decide to do things that affect other people, we need to talk with them and think about the wider consequences of our actions. If we don’t, we keep tripping each other up. That is frustrating, and limits how successful we are in our everyday work and lives.
A good starting point to improve one’s skills is to consider the ways in which we talk with others. This introductory course provides a practical framework for recognising, understanding and changing the way people are talking and thinking together. The purpose, structure and dynamics of different Modes of talking and thinking together are introduced. Each Mode involves a different kind of engagement and enables different outcomes. Two of the Modes involve Dialogue, and these are particularly important in complex or ambiguous situations, where people hold a variety of perspectives and opinions about what should be done and by whom. This is an opportunity to recognise and understand the Modes, and to learn how to use them all well to enhance your participation for the benefit of those around you, your work and participation in your community.