Necessary Methods and Skills for Building Dialogue

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Table of Contents

A definition of the dialogue
Effective listening skills
Feedback
Dialogic methods
Arguments
Ethics and argument
Business dependence on persuasion tools
References & Bibliography

A definition of the dialogue

Dialogue according to Bohm is a conversation that occurs between any number of people, which cannot be limited by two. Dialogues are an informal means of understanding each other without having any judgment or prejudice against the other person or his/her ideas. Since it is not about winning or losing, however it is all about “opinion” that Bohm suggests the reason why communication breakdown most of the time. We often like or dislike each other’s opinions which became the crux of the reason why communication breaks most of the time. As soon as the communication is broken, we start making necessary or unnecessary “assumptions” which itself are the ideas or opinions that we have been developing as models in our minds about other subject matter but not limited to a particular matter, for example, it could be about people, things, places, etc. It is due to this model that we often find ourselves engaged in contemplating upon others’ or even our own decisions for which often we feel the right to judge others.

William Isaacs also suggests a definition of the dialogue. However, it is somewhat formal and unlike Bohm, relies on the more academic description. Unlike Bohm, it theoretically explains how to conduct a dialogue between a number of participants. Conversation must be effective and meaningful and in order to conduct a better dialogue one must suspend these assumptions that are responsible for making us biased and judgmental people. Bohm mentioned such a level to be a “tacit level”, which not only supports a dialogue but is more than the expected and required level and goes beyond the traditional conversation phenomenon.

Tacit according to Bohm is ‘unspoken’ and ‘indescribable’ and entails a sharing process for which the body language takes place between the people who are engaged in dialogues (Bohm, 1996: 15). However, this sharing process is unable to open our shared consciousness, since we are only able to envision others and do not uphold the ability to which Bohm has referred to as “Proprioception” – the art of holding the ability to see ourselves in the light of action and reaction from other perspectives, to which we often don’t comply with. Proprioception escorts the communicators towards seeing self as part of the ‘ego’ which affects the conversation by making them think of themselves as the ultimate knowledge or truth.

Despite what critics say, I believe in the creative definition given by William Isaacs according to which Dialogue is a conversation not between two sides but with a center through which our argumentation and differences channel it in a new direction and create something new for us. Listening is the key to effective dialogue building and is an expansive activity that not only applies to others but also applies to ourselves since it is the gateway to judge our actions and reactions.

The best application of William Isaac’s definition is in the corporate and social sector where creativity matters and effective listening enable the speakers to appear to use verbal play, particularly in situations where social relations between participants are broadly symmetrical. Only Isaacs devised notion of dialogue suggests coordination among various groups of people based on thinking together. It thus features listening as equally beneficial to the more formal and asymmetrical settings such as interviews, legal cross-examinations, business meetings, and even conversations between strangers. Effective dialogues when combines with effective listening apply to even those informal settings, where the contexts of use are most frequently encountered by most speakers. In such settings the main intentions of verbal play can be interpreted to be involving, affective and ‘convergence-creating’, since speakers and listeners jointly co-construct playful discourse intending to align, harmonize and share ways of seeing, thereby creating a creative forum of reforming and reinforcing the informality of the relationship. It is best utilized in the workplace where listening is the key factor behind the effective language of small as well as large business organizations.

Effective listening skills

Effective listening guides us in a better manner to conduct business communication since it enables tolerance among the groups to contemplate upon others’ ideas. This way it enhances creativity and not only it is helpful in effective dialogue building with the other party, it also helps both the speaker and the listener to suggest a new pattern of solving their problems, which is creative and is the essence of meaningful listening. In business communication, in order to make our dialogues successful, there are also other means for getting into a deal like what Senge suggests as the ‘thinking together’ or ‘brainstorming’ model which possesses the ability to invite people to express what they perceive of the situation or problem, but this might have few consequences for the reason that top-down communication starts making the people frustrated because of the defendant point of view.

William Isaacs theory rests upon creative listeners who after listening, grasps all the concepts of creativity and that to the extent that future theories of communication support Isaacs theory by adequately dealing with both part and whole, the understanding of humans to be improved. It is due to the effective listening skills that business speakers are able to consider how they should go about the business of observing, analyzing, and providing evidence for the creation of an interactive phenomenon.

The question is why among many alternatives of achieving better communication, effective listening is preferred? The answer lies in the metaphor with an example of an organism that if examined under a microscope, only then it is visible. In the same manner, powerful listening is only obvious in a business environment that focuses on the logical aspect of listening or some characteristic of it, like in businesses where listening or coordinated thinking is acknowledged, there is a greater level of creativity within and outside the organization. Tolerance, brainstorming, reductionist ego-centric and mutual collaboration is some of the consequences of listening. Of course, such features can be attained by other communicative functions like effective speech, people sharing similar meaning and brainstorming the possibilities of effective ideas, but the way effective listening escorts the groups towards coming to a single point and the best it results in ‘feedback’, can never be achieved by adopting other functions.

This can be explained in another way because our human biological ability does not make it possible to see everything at once, all lies with the presence. This human limitation in communication or dialogue building does not mean that other things either disappear or do not exist. However, they are merely ignored, for the moment, whenever an effective listener grasps the speech, he actually stores the information by focusing or observing the results in seeing a particular relationship. This way we can see that an inherent weakness in all human dialogues and theorizing thus becomes apparent for we may often inadvertently ignore what is important or truly related to what we are observing; we may not even become aware of its existence.

Seeing or observing serves as the receptive experience on which a social environment is based, on the recognition of difference which itself requires some stance inside communication skill. Significant observations increase their significance from their divergence from the shared. The ‘shared’, however, is itself a social performance which when implies to any organizational phenomenon, is notably observed to depend on who is observing since the observer is an agent doing the work of a collective from which she, or he comes.

Feedback

Listening and observing approach opens a wide channel for creativity when applied on an organizational level. Listening serves to be a critical part of the organizational communication process and almost all the communication transactions are dependent on listening. The precise reception and interpretation of messages are crucial for effective organizational communication to take place. The quality of listening is affected by feedback and climate and for all organizations, effective listening is of great consequence. For service industries, customer contact is maintained and improved through effective listening whereas information-based industries limit some of the opportunities to communicate interpersonally since in an information-based environment listening events are potentially more important than listeners. Quality can be achieved only through coordination amid individuals and subunits, which requires superior listening skills.

This approach escorts to the feedback concept, which is central to our understanding of organizational behavior in general and of organizational communication specifically. Feedback helps in maintaining control and developing people in an organization, therefore as an effective listener and observer, the focus is on the feedback patterns most useful in enhancing the listening process.

Dialogic methods

Dialogic methods entail contrast in divided perception in such a manner that it also has some consequences. Besides caring for each other, communicators who are engaged in an ongoing dialogue process, give a break to each other, since they do not want intentionally to hurt each other’s feelings. Although philosophical reductionist thought has contributed rigorous methods to our search for ways of understanding the listening phenomenon, it equally has limited our range of creativity and ability to handle the complexities of human relationships, particularly in organizations. Thus, the pleasure of the intellect begins with the reasoning philosophy, but the pain of an individuated self with tenuous links to others ensues. Development beyond dialectic to dialogic perception is a move to relational thinking which acts as a process of development, even at any stage requiring increasingly deliberate levels of awareness.

A prolific preliminary step in sorting out various interpretations of interactions assumptions is to distinguish a dialectic from a dialogic approach to understanding human behavior. The dialogic approach perceives an essential faith in all human communication, and listening acts as a tool to be deployed in such phenomena.

In terms of communication, adopting dialogic techniques like concentrating on what has been said can make the competent person maintain focus on a goal while accessing the skills to reach that goal. Thus techniques like observing, accepting the argument based on dialogue are what often is required, particularly when setting a relational goal, are skills that reduce needs forego attention, and expand concerns for others.

Dialogic listening is to own the capabilities of active listening in which our views and the emerging consequence of the conversation are focused upon. In addition, Dialogic listening serves as the basis for understanding and creating new knowledge it prevents learners to accept new theories easily. During knowledge creation, it is essential that unless participants of dialogue do not question the former experiences related to that subject, the process of comparing, reasoning and accepting becomes difficult. During the process of listening to the newly formed knowledge, the recipients are required to follow what the speaker means by analyzing the context, understanding his attitudes and feelings towards the subject, and using secondary utterances by finally learning how to use this new knowledge in a different context. These aspects present a particular context to which the speaker and only by remaining conscious the listener can precede with the dialogue. Dialogic Model surrounds knowledge sharing in which retrospective dialogue differs from simple dialogue as it guts the recipient recapturing and telling how they understood each other.

Arguments

In order to get others to participate, there is a need to first understand their argument, and this can only be possible if one is able to put himself into the shoes of the speaker. This is business ethics according to which it is impermissible that there should be no discussion, debate or argument in organizational life, for there are always matters about which reasonable people may disagree. Therefore it is the ends and quality of the debate, more than the personal styles of those involved, which matters most. In the light of these facts, if we want others to participate, we must understand others’ behavior, both good and bad, to become apparent through their uses of language and their daily acts of communication. Since argument characterizes those communicative acts that are designed to influence others, it should be a favored candidate for the ethical examination. Considering the ethical dimension of argument is thus relevant to communication theorists and practitioners because it recognizes the central role of linguistic behavior at the workplace and because it draws our attention to possible abuses of the medium.

If we consider dialogue in context with ethics in a less popular though perhaps more significant sense, not simply as the study of moral behavior but as a process that helps us determine what moral behavior is in the first place, we will find that ethics and argument are related in almost inseparable ways. Discussions of right and wrong behavior cannot take place without conflicting points of view and advocates prepared to debate them. Since these discussions are characterized by controversy, the use of argument, even poor argument, is unavoidable. Arriving at the ‘right’ decision about behavior, which is one way ethicists have characterized the goal of dialogue in ethics, is simply not possible without engaging in a fundamentally argumentative process. Any argument cannot depend on how it is conceived, exist without ethics, unless one regards it as a mechanical device that is unrelated to the people it is designed to persuade. However, the argument is much more than syllogistic modeling, and reducing it to such would greatly diminish its value as a form of inquiry as well as persuasion. At best, such a reduction would hinder one from noticing and appreciating the different points of view that characterize the discussion of problems and issues. At worst, it would result in qualitatively inferior arguments because they would be self-serving and one-sided. Of course, this is an argument in its most limited sense. Understood more fully, as a form of rhetorical action in which one person seeks ways to persuade another, argument acquires at least as much of an ethical dimension as any other behavior that affects people involved in the reasoned exchange. Because of that, the argument should be particularly relevant to those who study ethics as part of their interest in management communication.

Ethics and argument

Dialogue in the context of where ethics is applied for shows less relevance as argument and ethics is perhaps even greater than it is for the listener because of the consequences one might directly suffer in the organizational world. In a situation where we confront both pessimistic and optimistic arguments, ethical argument refers to the speaker’s attempt to discover and provide the support that is relevant to the claims that are stated or implied. For example, in an organization, a manager states a problem exists with the newly hired supervisor. The manager thinks that after the supervisor was hired, more accidents occurred on both day and night shifts. Now if the manager gives the second statement as support for the first, we may be able to say that the manager is arguing unethically if we can show that the reason as it stands is not relevant to the claim. At the very least, we can say that the argument is ethically suspect and save our comments about the manager until we know something more about his or her intention. Notice that the argument here is not about moral behavior (though it could be); the argument is the behavior itself, and as such can be discussed as having an ethical dimension of its own, quite apart from the subject it may be about.

Defined in this situation, as an expression of behavior, the ethical argument is important to the speaker for at least three reasons. First, and perhaps most importantly, it helps to avoid self-deception. By becoming aware of the various ways in which one can argue points with only apparent support, the speaker will acquire a familiarity with and understanding of spurious arguments. Being misled includes misleading ourselves, which is all too easy if we do not recognize the spuriousness of our lines of reasoning. Second, an understanding of ethical argument is important because it provides the speaker with another form of defense, one that extends well beyond self-deception. The consciousness of rationale will support the use of dialogue since it would make more apparent the unethical attempts of others, from poorly reasoned performance reviews written by some supervisors to the manipulative messages produced by some advertisers. This provides a form of protection against those who might mislead us through a form of argument that seems to be correct but which remains unable to prove upon examination. Third, by becoming familiar with one’s own as well as others’ unethical arguments, the speaker or even the listener will become a better judge of ethical arguments. As we have seen, several sound reasons argue for familiarity with an ethical argument of which, unfortunately, those who wish to produce an ethical argument, much like those who wish to demonstrate ethical action, will find that they face a challenge. Even those who are very familiar with both ethics and argument have struggled in their attempts to determine what constitutes ethical discourse in general and ethical argument in particular.

Business dependence on persuasion tools

Dialogue is an ongoing process for most modern businesses, particularly when people attempt to persuade by giving and assessing reasons. Businesses encourage dialogue building for they believe it as an openly competitive activity, in which working professionals debate issues, defend positions, and evaluate the arguments of others. This seems to be the main reason why we should not be startled to find that written and oral dealings in business, particularly when practiced at the middle and upper levels, is characterized less by a need to inform and more by an obligation to argue. This obligation to argue is one that many in business already acknowledge through much of their daily communication since it is present any time listeners or readers resist. They are intellectually competitive because they have a competing point of view and are prepared to argue for it.

The ethical argument thus supplies a business with an amazing service because it is both a competitive and cooperative activity, one that is extremely well suited to an enterprise that today relies heavily on combined efforts to gain competitive advantage. However, changes in modern business will make an argument an even more important part of business practice in the future, as markets become more competitive, as organizations become more culturally diverse, and as autocratic styles of management give way to efforts at empowerment.

No business in the market can afford to sweep away by the competition and even no business can rely upon the notion supported by a negative argument, therefore as markets have become more competitive, more emphasis will be placed on gaining an advantage. However, the most successful companies will be those that possess the ability to persuade the customers that they possess an advantage, particularly if this involves a differentiated product or service. In other words, a business will depend more heavily on the tools of persuasion and therefore argument. Without the resistance produced by competition, a business could adopt a relatively relaxed stance and simply inform customers of products and services. In a competitive market, a business must persuade its customers that its products or services are the best or the best price. However, it is true that with less competitive markets, some forms of convincing dealings might not even exist, for example, comparative advertising, which is openly persuasive if not argumentative, would be less likely in a less competitive market. This is not to say that advertising will become a more reasoned expression of business interest, but that competition will force businesses into a more persuasive stance. The greater the competition, the greater the need for argumentation.

Like us, the organizations in which we work are also built on the assumption that we can communicate effectively, and that any communication has a single meaning or resulting action for all those involved. We believe that we can improve communications, by compromising on arguments and ethics that if we give people the facts, the meaning will be clear, the truth will prevail if there is ready access to all the relevant information.

References & Bibliography

Bohm David & Nichol Lee, (1996) On Dialogue: Routledge.

Isaacs William, (1999) Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together: A pioneering approach to communicating in business and in life. Bantam Books.

Senge, M. Peter, (1994) The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization: New York.

Yingling Julie, (2004) A Lifetime of Communication: Transformation through Relational Dialogues: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.

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