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Developing Online Professional Dialogue - Thomas Köttner

Thomas Köttner

Twenty-five years of professional work conducted entirely online, long before COVID. Thomas Köttner shares hard-won lessons about bringing genuine dialogue into digital space, where the real challenge isn't technology but our shrinking patience for slowness.

Writing from Argentina, far from global business centres, Thomas Köttner found the internet "life-changing" for narrowing distance. He's spent 25 years working professionally online, including as managing partner of CoachReady, the world's first fully online executive coaching company. This paper explores what dialogue loses and gains in digital space. The central challenge isn't technology but time expectations; dialogue requires slowness in a world demanding instant response. Köttner offers a striking reframe: online, the distance to your fellow person is the distance from your head to your screen. In physical presence, that proximity would feel like invasion. He argues that deep connection online requires "an additional dose of awareness". humility, welcoming uncertainty, sharing your environment to foster empathy. The pandemic accelerated what was already inevitable. For practitioners willing to adapt, the online world offers unlimited possibilities for dialogue work without geographical constraint.

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