
Books & Papers
Dialogue within Decision Making - Peter Garrett
Peter Garrett
Many claim dialogue has "no agenda" and isn't about decision-making. Peter Garrett argues this would make dialogue irrelevant to organisational life. He explains the architectural thinking behind the Working Dialogue, designed to influence the quality of collective decisions.
Many practitioners claim dialogue has "no agenda" and isn't about decision-making. Peter Garrett argues this would marginalise dialogue, leaving it unrelated to working life where people make decisions every day. This paper explains the architectural thinking behind the Working Dialogue, a five-phase pattern designed with Jane Ball and a Virginia team to bring dialogue into organisational decision-making at scale. The key insight: fragmentation arises when we talk about "them" and "they" aren't in the room. The solution is creating "power centres". dialogues that bring interdependent people together to develop common understanding before making decisions that affect each other. Examples include an oil refinery forum that transformed years of contention, a three-country business dispute threatening jobs, and the Threshold Dialogue work with high-repeat offenders. Garrett traces the journey from Bohm's original dialogues with academics concerned about societal fragmentation to practical patterns usable in every business unit of a large state agency.
Format
Paper
Category
Books & Papers
Topics
Facilitation and practice, Dialogue in organisations and systems
Access
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