What is Dialogue?

You are invited to join in a conversation about dialogue. Please follow this link to add your thoughts and ideas about the value of dialogue.

+Dialogue is a conversation that promotes understanding.: Dialogue is a way of speaking and listening that comes from deep inside us, weaving thoughts and feelings into rich and strong ideas and actions. Positions become less important and the focus shifts to exciting new possibilities, ideas and actions. Everybody has a contribution to make towards the wellbeing of the group or organization and dialogue honors that contribution. Dialogue matters because every person matters.

What are your ideas? Why does dialogue matter to you? Please enter into this conversation and tell us why dialogue is important to you…: Other authors have said:
+Dialogue is the free flow of meaning between two or more people.: We each have a “unique combination of thoughts and feelings (that) make… up our personal pool of meaning… When two or more of us enter crucial conversations, by definition we don’t (yet) share the same pool… People who are skilled at dialogue do their best to make it safe for everyone to add their meaning to the shared pool…do their best to ensure that all ideas find their way into the open.”

Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler.
(2002) Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high.
NY: McGraw Hill Publishing.
+Dialogue is conversation between two or more persons;: an exchange of ideas or opinions on a particular issue with a view to reaching an amicable agreement or settlement; to discuss areas of disagreement frankly in order to resolve them.

Random House, Unabridged Dictionary.
+Dialogue is the only way that we humans have to enter our particular thoughts and ideas into the “pool of shared meaning.”: In researching learning and adaptation in organisms from cells to social systems, John Holland, “emphasizes that optimum learning and development occur in systems in which there is a rich web of interactions, along with an environment of novelty where new opportunities and spaces of possibility can be explored.”

Juanita Brown with David Isaacs and the World Care Community.
(2005) The World Café: Shaping our future through conversations that matter.
CA: San Francisco. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.