In 1991 the physicist David Bohm, with Donald Factor and Peter Garrett, wrote Dialogue: A Proposal. It remains one of the most useful things I have read about why groups struggle to talk about what matters to them, and what they can do about it.
Their starting point: people can sing, dance and play together with little difficulty, yet talking together about subjects that matter deeply to them so often leads to dispute and division. Bohm saw this as a sign of incoherence in the way we think, individually and collectively.
What dialogue is
The word comes from dia, through, and logos, the meaning of the word. Bohm's image is a river of meaning flowing around and through the participants. In dialogue, a group explores the assumptions, beliefs and feelings that quietly control how its members interact. It becomes a place to observe, collectively, how hidden values and intentions shape behaviour, and how unnoticed cultural differences clash without anyone realising.
What dialogue is not
Dialogue is not discussion, a word that shares its root with percussion and concussion, both of which break things up. Nor is it debate. Both aim at a goal: to win, to agree, to solve the problem. Dialogue is not therapy or team building either, although learning and the dissolving of blocks often happen in it.
The core practice: suspension
Suspension is at the heart of dialogue. It does not mean repressing your reactions, opinions and judgements. It means noticing them, and holding them up where you and others can see them, while they are happening. When a group does this, the rush from thought to feeling to reaction slows down, and the group begins to see the deeper meanings and the patterns behind its conversation.
Bohm's practical suggestions: twenty to forty people in a single circle; about two hours; meeting regularly; one or two experienced facilitators who intervene rarely and aim to make themselves redundant; and no subject excluded.
Dialogue inside organisations
In an existing organisation there is hierarchy, history and fear of saying the wrong thing. Bohm and his colleagues recognised that dialogue there usually has to begin with the doubts and fears that taking part raises, and with a more specific agenda the group can later move beyond.
How we use it
We rarely run a pure Bohmian dialogue for a client. But its principles shape much of our work. With the senior team at BHASVIC, dialogue was central: by learning to listen to each other, team members understood the impact and unintended consequences of habitual behaviours. That work won a 2016 IAF Facilitation Impact Award (read the story).
Listening better
Dialogue depends on listening. It helps to think of levels of listening, from waiting for our turn to speak, through listening for facts, to listening with empathy and finally listening for what is emerging in the whole group. Most meetings run at the first two levels. Methods like dialogue and LEGO® Serious Play®, where people build a model and then tell its story while others listen with their eyes as well as their ears, raise the level.
The original text of Dialogue: A Proposal is freely available for non-commercial use from the David Bohm Society. For dialogue in practice, see team and leadership meetings.
Sean Blair is the founder of ProMeet and Serious Outcomes, an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator and a LEGO® Serious Play® Master Trainer. About Sean.