North Seattle Community College Beginnngs, Fall 2010

NORTH SEATTLE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
BEGINNNGS, FALL 2010

MORE ON DIALOGUE

Contribution to Dialogue

Paulo Freire’s (1921-1997) emphasis on dialogue has struck a very strong chord with those concerned with popular and informal education. Given that informal education is a dialogical (or conversational) rather than a curricula form this is hardly surprising. However, Paulo Freire was able to take the discussion on several steps with his insistence that dialogue involves respect. It should not involve one person acting on another, but rather people working with each other. Too much education, Paulo Freire argues, involves 'banking' - the educator making 'deposits' in the educatee.

Second, Paulo Freire was concerned with praxis - action that is informed (and linked to certain values). Dialogue wasn't just about deepening understanding - but was part of making a difference in the world. Dialogue in itself is a co-operative activity involving respect. The process is important and can be seen as enhancing community and building social capital and to leading us to act in ways that make for justice and human flourishing. Informal and popular educators have had a long-standing orientation to action - so the emphasis on change in the world was welcome. But there was a sting in the tail. Paulo Freire argued for informed action and as such provided a useful counter-balance to those who want to diminish theory.

Third, Freire's attention to naming the world has been of great significance to those educators who have traditionally worked with those who do not have a voice, and who are oppressed. The idea of building a 'pedagogy of the oppressed' or a 'pedagogy of hope' and how this may be carried forward has formed a significant impetus to work. An important element of this was his concern with conscientization - developing consciousness, but consciousness that is understood to have the power to transform reality' (Taylor 1993: 52).

Fourth, Paulo Freire's insistence on situating educational activity in the lived experience of participants has opened up a series of possibilities for the way informal educators can approach practice. His concern to look for words that have the possibility of generating new ways of naming and acting in the world when working with people around literacies is a good example of this.

Bohm on dialogue

David Bohm (1917-1992) was a distinguished physicist best known for his work on the fundamentals of quantum theory and relativity theory and their implications for other fields. Bohm sees ‘reality’ as involving ‘unbroken wholeness in flowing movement’. Thought could be seen largely as a collective phenomenon.

This orientation allowed him to enter into a well-known dialogue (and friendship) with Jidhu Krishnamurti. Their explorations ranged widely including why humanity has made thought so important, cleansing the mind of ‘accumulation of time’, breaking the pattern of ego-centred activity and the wrong turn humanity has taken (Krishnamurti and Bohm 1985). One important outcome of this collaboration was David Bohm’s continuing interest in the cultivation of dialogue itself as a path to greater wisdom and learning.

Dialogue, as we are choosing to use the word, is a way of exploring the roots of the many crises that face humanity today. It enables inquiry into, and understanding of, the sorts of processes that fragment and interfere with real communication between individuals, nations and even different parts of the same organization.

We are dealing with Dialogue with a capital ‘D’ here. Dialogue is set against discussion. ‘A key difference between a dialogue and an ordinary discussion is that, within the latter people usually hold relatively fixed positions and argue in favor of their views as they try to convince others to change. At best this may produce agreement or compromise, but it does not give rise to anything creative’ (Bohm and Peat 1987: 241). ‘The purpose of dialogue’, David Bohm suggests, ‘is to reveal the incoherence in our thought’. In so doing it becomes possible to discover or re-establish a ‘genuine and creative collective consciousness’. The process of dialogue is a process of ‘awakening’, it entails a free flow of meaning among all the participants:

David Bohm sets out three basic conditions for Dialogue:

Participants must suspend their assumptions. ‘What is essential here is the presence of the spirit of dialogue, which is in short, the ability to hold many points of view in suspension, along with a primary interest in the creation of common meaning’ (Bohm and Peat 1987: 247). Suspending an assumption does not mean ignoring it, but rather ‘holding it in front of us’ ready for exploration. (This links very closely with Gadamer’s view of pre-judgements).

Participants must view each other as colleagues or peers. Dialogue occurs when people appreciate that they are involved in a mutual quest for understanding and insight. ‘A Dialogue is essentially a conversation between equals’ (Bohm et. al. 1991).

In the early stages there needs to be a facilitator who ‘holds the context’ of dialogue. ‘Their role should be to occasionally point out situations that might seem to be presenting sticking points for the group, in other words, to aid the process of collective proprioception, but these interventions should never be manipulative nor obtrusive’ (Bohm et. al. 1991). They continue, ‘guidance, when it is felt to be necessary, should take the form of "leading from behind" and preserve the intention of making itself redundant as quickly as possible’.

William Isaacs
William Isaacs is founder of DIA-logos and Director of the Dialogue Project at MIT's Sloan School of Management. He is the author of a new book on dialogue - The Art of Thinking Together. For the past 16 years, he has consulted to major organizations in the fields of organizational learning and dialogue. He is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Dialogue begins with yourself. To be effective, we must first ask ourselves how successful we are at listening to and speaking with myself?

Four Individual Practices to be applied in dialogue:

1. Listening: The heart of dialogue is the capacity to listen. Listening requires we not only hear the words, but also embrace, accept, and gradually let go of our inner clamoring. As we explore it, we discover that listening is an expansive activity. It gives us a way to perceive more directly the ways we participate in the world around us.

Left Hand Column Tool (below)

2. Respecting: Respect is not a passive act. To respect someone is to look for the springs that feed the pool of their experience. (Latin respecere, “to look again”.) Its ancient roots mean “to observe.” Where we see one aspect, we look again and realize how much of them we had missed. The act of respect invites us to see others as legitimate.

3. Suspending: When we listen to someone speak, we face a critical choice. If we begin to form an opinion we can do one of two things: we can choose to defend our view and resist theirs…Or we can learn to suspend our opinion and the certainty that lies behind it.

4. Voicing: Speaking your voice has to do with revealing what is true for you regardless of other influences that might be brought to bear. Finding your voice in dialogue means learning to ask a simple question: what needs to be expressed now?

The Left-Hand Column

Rick Ross, Art Kleiner

Step 1: Choosing a Problem

Select a difficult problem you've been involved with during the last month or so, the kind of tough, interpersonal difficulty that many of us try to ignore.

You can't reach agreement with your close associates.
Someone else is not pulling his or her weight.
You believe you are being treated unfairly.
You believe your point of view is being ignored or discounted.
The rest of the organization is resisting -- or you believe they resist -- a change you want to implement.
You believe your team is not paying much attention to the most crucial problem.

Write a brief paragraph describing the situation. What are vou trying to accomplish? Who or what is blocking you? What might happen?

Step 2: The Right-Hand Column (What Was Said)

Now recall a frustrating conversation you had over this situation -- or imagine the conversation that you would have if you brought up the problem.

Take several pieces of paper and draw a line down the center. (You can also enter this in a word processor with a two-column feature. Use side-by-side columns, or "table" columns, rather than newspaper or "snaking" columns.)

In the right-hand column, write out the dialogue that actually occurred. Or write the dialogue you're pretty sure would occur if you were to raise this issue. The dialogue may go on for several pages. Leave the left-hand column blank until you're finished.

Step 3: The Left-Hand Column (What You Were Thinking)

Now in the left-hand column, write out what you were thinking and feeling, but not saying.

A Sample Case

Here is an example of the format. An R&D project manager (Jim) assumes his supervisor (Todd) feels harshly about him. In the right-hand column, Jim writes down his last conversation with Todd. In the left, Jim recalls his own thoughts.

What I was thinking / What we said
We're two months late, and I didn't think he knew. I was hoping we could catch up. / TODD: Jim, I'd like to come down there next week. We're a few weeks behind, and I think we might all benefit from a meeting at your office.
I need to make it clear that I'm willing to take responsibility for this, but I don't want to volunteer for more work. / ME: I've been very concerned about these deadlines. As you know, we've had some tough luck here, and we're working around the clock. But of course, we'll squeeze in a meeting at your convenience.
He never offers this help in the planning stages, when I could really use it. It's too late now to bring that up. / TODD: Well, it's occurred to me that we could use better coordination between us. There are probably some ways I could help.
The changes he keeps making are the real reason we're late. He must have another one. / ME: Well, I'm happy to talk through any changes you have in mind.
TODD: I don't have anything specific in mind.
It's a shame I can't tell him that he's the cause of the delays. If I can hold him off two more weeks, I think we'll be ready. / ME: I'd like to have a prototype finished to show you before you come down. What if we set up something for the twenty-seventh?

Step 4: Reflection: Using Your Left-Hand Column as a Resource

You can learn a great deal just from the act of writing out a case, putting it away for a week, and then looking at it again. The case becomes an artifact through which you can examine your own thinking, as if you were looking at the thinking of someone else.

As you reflect, ask yourself:

What has really led me to think and feel this way?
What was your intention? What were you trying to accomplish?
Did you achieve the results you intended?
How might your comments have contributed to the difficulties?
Why didn't you say what was in your left-hand column?
What assumptions are you making about the other person or people?
What were the costs of operating this way? What were the payoffs?
What prevented you from acting differently?
How can I use my left-hand column as a resource to improve our communications?

Ladder of Inference

Short Circuiting Reality

Gene Bellinger

The following "Ladder of Inference" was, I believe, initially developed by Chris Argyris (Harvard) , and subsequently presented in Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.

What the diagram implies is that we begin with Real Data & Experience, the kind that would be captured by a movie camera that didn't lie. We then choose a set of Selected Data & Experience that we pay attention to. To this Selected Data & Experience we Affix Meaning, develop Assumptions, come to Conclusions, and finally develop Beliefs. Beliefs then form the basis of our Actions which create additional Real Data & Experience
The circular nature of this description becomes evident when the diagram is redrawn with an added influence.

This diagram indicates the reinforcing nature of this structure, as each action builds on the one before it. Yet there is an apparent difficulty with this structure.
It is our Beliefs which influence the Selected Data & Experience we pay attention to.

This diagram indicates that as our Beliefs influence the Selected Data & Experience we pay attention to they essentially establish an internal reinforcing loop which short circuits reality. The tendency is to select data to pay attention to which supports our beliefs. And, I would expect, as our Beliefs become more and more rigid the Selected Data & Experience we are willing to pay attention to will become a smaller and smaller portion of reality.
The relevant question seems to relate to how do we stop short circuiting reality and begin to see reality for what it really is.
My experience has lead me to understand that although there are many similarities in the way we each view Real Data & Experience there are subtle differences in the ladders of inference we traverse. I have found that by developing an understanding of the rungs on others ladders of inference the alternative perspectives provide a basis for uncovering inconsistencies between the Real Data & Experience and Selected Data & Experience resulting from my beliefs. An earnest endeavor to seek truth and understanding seems most beneficial.
The Ladder of Inference

Rick Ross
Excerpt from The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. Copyright 1994 by Peter M. Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Richard B. Ross, and Bryan J. Smith. Reprinted with permission.

We live in a world of self-generating beliefs which remain largely untested. We adopt those beliefs because they are based on conclusions, which are inferred from what we observe, plus our past experience. Our ability to achieve the results we truly desire is eroded by our feelings that:

Our beliefs are the truth.
The truth is obvious.
Our beliefs are based on real data.
The data we select are the real data.

For example: I am standing before the executive team, making a presentation. They all seem engaged and alert, except for Larry, at the end of the table, who seems bored out of his mind. He turns his dark, morose eyes away from me and puts his hand to his mouth. He doesn't ask any questions until I'm almost done, when he breaks in: "I think we should ask for a full report." In this culture, that typically means, "Let's move on." Everyone starts to shuffle their papers and put their notes away. Larry obviously thinks that I'm incompetent -- which is a shame, because these ideas are exactly what his department needs. Now that I think of it, he's never liked my ideas. Clearly, Larry is a power-hungry jerk. By the time I've returned to my seat, I've made a decision: I'm not going to include anything in my report that Larry can use. He wouldn't read it, or, worse still, he'd just use it against me. It's too bad I have an enemy who's so prominent in the company.

In those few seconds before I take my seat, I have climbed up what Chris Argyris calls a "ladder of inference," -- a common mental pathway of increasing abstraction, often leading to misguided beliefs:

I started with the observable data: Larry's comment, which is so self- evident that it would show up on a videotape recorder . . .
. . . I selected some details about Larry's behavior: his glance away from me and apparent yawn. (I didn't notice him listening intently one moment before) . . .
. . . I added some meanings of my own, based on the culture around me (that Larry wanted me to finish up) . . .
. . . I moved rapidly up to assumptions about Larry's current state (he's bored) . . .
. . . and I concluded that Larry, in general, thinks I'm incompetent. In fact, I now believe that Larry (and probably everyone whom I associate with Larry) is dangerously opposed to me . . .
. . . thus, as I reach the top of the ladder, I'm plotting against him.

It all seems so reasonable, and it happens so quickly, that I'm not even aware I've done it. Moreover, all the rungs of the ladder take place in my head. The only parts visible to anyone else are the directly observable data at the bottom, and my own decision to take action at the top. The rest of the trip, the ladder where I spend most of my time, is unseen, unquestioned, not considered fit for discussion, and enormously abstract. (These leaps up the ladder are sometimes called "leaps of abstraction.")

Using the Ladder of Inference

You can't live your life without adding meaning or drawing conclusions. It would be an inefficient, tedious way to live. But you can improve your communications through reflection, and by using the ladder of inference in three ways:

Becoming more aware of your own thinking and reasoning (reflection);
Making your thinking and reasoning more visible to others (advocacy);
Inquiring into others' thinking and reasoning (inquiry).

Once Larry and I understand the concepts behind the "ladder of inference," we have a safe way to stop a conversation in its tracks and ask several questions: