Dialogue & Diversity

“Dialogue helps us to bridge the increasing diversity found within modern organisations today.  It is through the exploration of meaning that we learn who each person is and how we can work together appropriately.”
- Glenna Gerard & Linda Elinor

The topic of diversity today is mostly seen as the "inclusion and visibility of persons of previously under-represented minority identities.” However, previous to this recent focus on the meaning of diversity, introduced in the 1990s, diversity was simply a difference in character or quality. 

Difference is sometimes seen as potential for conflict or fragmentation. But if we see difference and diversity as an opportunity for knowledge and innovation, we can recognise that each person within an organisation or society possesses unique talents and experiences that can be contributed in a positive way. We are not limited to viewing diversity policies as a box-ticking exercise, and can reach across gender, age, ethnicity and experience to unlock and nurture potential in everyone. Studies have shown that diverse teams are smarter and create better results. So the question is, how can you support diversity in a way that makes all people feel included, valued and is also good for business?

It is our assumptions and unconscious biases that often create barriers to reframing difference and diversity as a positive strength. Challenging these assumptions in a critical and confrontational way will most likely result in increased conflict and fragmentation. It is only within an environment that fosters deep listening and non-judgement  that people are able to become aware of their assumptions and biases and potentially change their thinking and behaviour as a result. 

“Dialogue is the collective way of opening up judgements and assumptions.” - David Bohm

The practice of dialogue, supported by other creative facilitation techniques focusing on communication skills and relationship building provides a space of psychological safety for participants to come together, to voice, listen and learn from and with each other.

Moving from 'I' to 'We' - A dialogue on values and the SDGs - responsible consumption and production

In the second of our dialogue series on values and the SDGs we chose to focus on Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production.

After the opening mindfulness exercise and introduction to Bohm Dialogue we proceeded with two short framing activities: a word association exercise with the words ‘responsible’ and ‘efficiency’ and a partner reflection on images of consumer waste from food waste, plastic, textiles and e-waste, within differing contexts of people, animals or nature. I invited participants to open the dialogue by sharing a feeling that arose from looking at and discussing the images. These included sad, anxious, frustrated, disgusted and angry. From there we moved into the dialogue.

The first part of the dialogue had felt very ‘comfortable,’ focusing on the small changes that we can make as individuals to create bigger change - a common narrative, and one that in theory would work, but the question that also arose is ‘do we have the time for each individual to come to their own realisations and wishes to change?’

With shorter dialogues there is often more need to reflect back to the group what has been said and ask for a moment of reflection. My questions and observations were to point out the mainly ‘solutions based’ offerings by the group, to reflect again on the value of responsibility and who we are responsible to and what we are responsible for, and finally to think about what was not being said.

The question of ‘what is not being said’ was answered by one participant working with inequality - acknowledging that we were a privileged group of people, and that those from lower economic or social backgrounds may not have the mental or emotional capacity due to stress or life pressures, the financial means or knowledge to make many sustainable choices. It was also acknowledged that people in the room were self-selecting and therefore already engaged in these issues and of similar mindsets, so the usual challenge of how do we reach the disengaged or unaware people was raised. Media was offered as one solution to this, but it was also recognised that the majority and dominant media companies reinforce negative narratives on sustainability, climate change etc that actively disempower people,so cannot be relied on to support culture and behaviour change through positive interventions.

Another participant shared that they did not always want to be responsible, something that resonates very deeply with me sometimes. Responsibility is a complex value and needs the support of many other values such as accountability, courage and integrity. When and how we access and use these values needs deeper thought and consideration.

The ongoing reflection of these two dialogues exploring values and the SDGs is the need to keep  bringing the focus back to the values, connecting to and sharing the meaning of the central value of each goal. The SDGs take us between the ‘I’ and the ‘it’ - the ‘I’ being, ‘what can I change?’ and the ‘it’ being the system. System change mostly feels overwhelming and futile, so it is easy to default back to individual change and stay with the comfortable feeling of ‘if I am responsible for my choices everything will be okay,’ but we make thousands of choices everyday, and many of these are ‘thoughtless,’ a word that was introduced early on in the dialogue and stuck with me and mirrored with ‘awareness,’ reminding me of the quote- “You are personally responsible for everything in your life, once you become aware that you are personally responsible for everything in your life” - Bruce Lipton.

Even if we have a healthy degree of self-awareness, frequent barriers to making more sustainable choices are time, money, convenience and knowledge. Indeed when all of these are in our favour it does not guarantee that we will make the most sustainable choice - we might also make the choice that makes us feel good, or impresses our peers. One participant stated that we need to ‘work with human nature, not against it,’ but for this to be truly effective we would have to agree upon the framework of understanding human nature - not a simple task. Perhaps easier would be to share and connect from a place of values and to support each other to operate from this place with the courage and integrity to act differently. This came up in the check-out - to be bold and brave with our choices, even when other people might think we are ‘strange.’ However, we again face a paradox, between our desire to belong and our desire to have the courage to stand up for what we believe in. I was surprised that the dialogue did not mention community or collective responsibility, staying very much within the realm of personal responsibility, action and change, and touching on the responsibility of government and business. We were given one example of an organisation that was changing its culture by empowering its people to ask for the change they wanted. Within an organisation, that sense of community and shared values can help create the safety, energy and motivation in a group to demand change. So I was left with the question ‘how can we create more change from communities?’ or perhaps from a more personal perspective, ‘what communities do I feel I belong to, and what change can I help create from them?’

We already have many of the solutions we need to solve our global challenges, we just need to commit to the actions that implement them. Values and community feel central to this shift - we need to move from ‘what can I change?’ to ‘what can we change?’

To register for our next dialogue please visit Eventbrite. For further information about the UK Values Alliance visit their website.

World Values Day Blog - A Journey of Values and Dialogue

I was asked to write a blog post for the World Values Day website and World Values Day last week, reflecting on our dialogue series this year. World Values Day may just be once a year but like all these ‘days’ it is to highlight and encourage us to try and think about and live our values every day.

“It is a process which explores an unusually wide range of human experience: our closely held values; the nature and intensity of emotions; the patterns of our thought processes; the function of memory; the importance of inherited cultural myths; and the manner in which our neurophysiology structures moment-to-moment experience…Such an inquiry necessarily calls into question deeply held assumptions regarding culture, meaning and identity.”  

-David Bohm, On Dialogue

Following on from a revealing taster dialogue session with members of the UK Values Alliance at the end of 2017, we decided that dialogue is an ideal practice to explore, think about and reflect upon personal and shared values. This year we will have hosted 4 dialogues, preceding World Values Day, exploring values in relation to the self, others and the world around us. They have been enlightening and thought provoking as well as creating spaces for deeper connection and understanding. These dialogues are also the inspiration for the downloadable resource, available on the World Values Day website, that provides instruction and guidance on how to host a values-based community dialogue.

The practice of dialogue that we have been working with throughout the year and in the resource is Bohm Dialogue. David Bohm (1917-1992) was a theoretical physicist, most known for his theory of the implicate and explicate order. In his later life he developed a philosophy of dialogue which grew out of his observation that one of the reasons for the many crisis’s we face as a global society is fragmentation. Our societies, organisations and even ourselves are fragmented; we have lost sight of the whole and that all livings things are interconnected, interdependent and interrelated.

As Bohm’s contemporary Einstein famously said, “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create it.”

This is why Bohm recognised that what we so desperately need is new thinking, and that we struggle to arrive at this new thinking because we do not create the time and space to come together and meet in a meaningful way or create the conditions in which we can allow new thinking to occur. Values are so intrinsic to a dialogue practice and combined they provide us with a potentially powerful tool for positive change.

As local and global communities, we are being held back by divisive, argumentative and accusatory ways of communicating. Dialogue presents another way of communicating with each other; allowing us to connect through meaning and values and to generate new ways of thinking about the people and the world around us.

In today’s complex times we need to come together in dialogue in order to listen, connect, understand, learn and grow. As communities we find time and space to come together and think and act on things that are important to us. Communities share common interests, and they give us a sense of belonging and participation. We can also find this sense in dialogue together.

We often get stuck; stuck saying the same things, thinking the same thoughts or acting the same way because we can’t get beyond our traditional modes of communication: those of monologue, debate and discussion, to arrive at a deeper level of meaning and understanding. Dialogue allows us to reach this deeper level, and create new ways of thinking by sharing meaning together. This shared meaning has been abundant in our dialogue series as we went on a journey of values and dialogue.

In our first dialogue we explored and shared meaning around personal values: what they are, where they come from, how we action them, what can challenge them and what meaning they bring to our lives. It generated some interesting thinking and areas for further exploration such as  whether value based behaviour is a choice and what can compromise it, often creating the value-action gap we are striving to close; and what are the small things that we can do to live our values, starting from smiling at people in public places and asking those who serve us daily, ‘how are you?’

“We are relating to each other at a very deep level and that’s a very powerful thing” -dialogue participant

In our second dialogue exploring values and others one of the topics we arrived at was litter, which was given as an example of behaviour of others that is hard to understand and tolerate. Why would someone choose to litter our shared environment, and equally what drives others to pick it up when it is not theirs. This proved a very good example and raised two further points around the values of acceptance and understanding. Some felt that acceptance of the person who had littered was part of understanding the human condition; we are all doing the best we can, with what we have. Others raised concern that an acceptance of people dropping litter was parallel to doing nothing and becoming apathetic. For some acceptance means non-action, for others acceptance leads to action; for is it possible to encourage the person that litters to stop littering if we show them anger and aggression or if we meet them with acceptance and love.

“There can’t be understanding, without understanding.” – dialogue participant

In our third dialogue we set out to explore values and how they influence our relationship with the world around us. One powerful reflection by a participant was on the distinction between operational values that drive day-to-day behaviour and idealistic values that might help him aspire to and become to the ‘next best version of myself,’ and asked how we could support the tension between ‘who I am today and who I could be tomorrow.’ The ability to see ourselves and our values as dynamic and evolving allows us to face challenging situations or people with compassion and create the space and conditions for change. The question of whether ‘bad people’ have values arose in the dialogue and it was suggested by some that it is not a case of judging people as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but instead meeting them with understanding, empathy and compassion. When we become focused on the lack of values in others, we can also lose touch with our ability to respond from a place of our own personal values. If we want others to change we need to ask ourselves whether they are likely to do so when met with judgement and blame, or with love and understanding.

“Values are in reality all defined by how you interact with other people and the way you behave in the world.” – dialogue participant

In the dialogue series we have experienced first-hand some of the benefits to individuals participating in a dialogue, which can be; to feel valued by participating, being listened to, seen and accepted; to understand themselves better by reflecting upon and speaking their thoughts; and to understand others better by listening without judgement, to different points of view and other people’s experiences.

Equally there are collective benefits to communities that take part in dialogue, such as, to be able to move beyond conflict and challenges by uncovering assumptions and unconscious biases; to gain insights and spark ideas that help form solutions that benefit everyone; and to improve relationships by building trust, empathy and understanding.

If you feel part of a community it is likely that there is something that binds you together, through common interests, values, and a sense that it is important enough for you to care about and give your time to. When something is important to us, very often we have different reasons for its importance. Without good communication it can be challenging to express this importance within the group, or to people outside of the group. This is why we need dialogue: in the same way that possessing a strong sense of values can strengthen community, being in dialogue together can also strengthen community.

We tend to jump to defend what is important to us. When we defend an opinion we inhibit our ability to be able to ‘think together’ because our energy and focus is going into defending, we become closed. In dialogue we need to be able to stay open, noticing what is occurring in us, whilst bringing attention to what is being said by others and the group.  We all have things that are important to us, and these are shaped by past experiences as well as familial, cultural and social framing. Therefore, it is important to realise that very often our opinions are intrinsically tied up with our sense of self and identity. We fear that if our opinions are challenged, our very sense of being and who we are is challenged also. Through dialogue we are able to see ourselves as a unique part of a whole community, to understand that what we see in others, whether we like it or not, is also in us. We welcome all thoughts and feelings because to dismiss, ignore or exclude something or someone is to fragment the community, and deny something, if only a potentiality, that is also within us.

If you are part of a community and have a desire to think about the potential of your community and what you would like to apply it to, to improve the lives of yourself and others, then please use our values-based community dialogue resource,  and let us know what meaning you create together!

The World Needs Dialogue - Inaugural Conference

For three days this week I had the pleasure of attending the first ‘The World Needs Dialogue’ conference, hosted at Roffey Park by the International Academy of Dialogue. The conference drew 80 people from around the world who have been working with dialogue in a variety of sectors, from healthcare, criminal justice, organisations and societies, some for many years. The wealth of experience, expertise, passion and warmth was a source of great inspiration and motivation that dialogue can bring about positive change in our many fragmented and polarised societies and organisations.

A number of themes emerged for me from the dialogues that I attended and I make some attempt to summarise them and identify the further questions they raised.

‘HELPING’ OTHERS

In the first dialogue I noticed a question arising about how our natural human instinct to help others can often inadvertently render the very people or person we are trying to help, to become helpless. It became apparent to me that it is important for us to understand the intention and projection of our desire to ‘help’. There is a danger in thinking that we can ‘help’ others, in that part of us thinks this way because we think we have more skills, intelligence or ability than the person or people we are trying to help. Have we asked ourselves whether the person or people need or want our help, or whether we have a authentic and legitimate relationship to their community or context. If we think we know ‘what is best’ for someone are we actually disempowering them, by not supporting a situation that allows them to discover and create their own answers and solutions for themselves, with their own personal or collective power. We are very often moved to help because the situation touches something in us that we have experienced or felt. Perhaps if we look for ways to connect with the person by sharing these motivations or offering ourselves in service to their needs, then we can create a more equal starting point in which we can work together to solve problems or affect change. Finally it is important that we empower each other to be able to ask for help, from a place of ownership of own individual needs. Creating spaces for each person’s voice to be heard equally and with respect, as in dialogue, is a space where we are able to ‘help’ each other simply by being ourselves.

“I want to be connected but I also want to be different, I still want to be me”

— -Dialogue participant

POWERLESSNESS

Following on from the first dialogue, the second was within a prison and criminal justice context. One participant shared in the check-in that for them, prisons dehumanise people. This led me to build on the theme of help, to one of power and powerlessness. When we dehumanise people we take away their personal power, we render them powerless. Prisons are by their nature structures of power and control. However, if our prison service is committed to reform and rehabilitation then must we find a way to give back to prisoners a sense of their personal power and the responsibility that comes with it.

RESPONSIBILITY

The themes of conflict and responsibility arose in the three dialogue I took part in. Conflict was explored in two ways; the conflict that can arise in a dialogue in the present moment, and the conflict that is bought to the dialogue with the hope of dissipating it. It is very often that in situations of conflict one or both sides are placing blame and judgement on the other. When we are forced to start from a position of defence it is unlikely that we are going to open ourselves to an exploration of possible solutions to an issue in a positive and conducive way. This blame and judgement is very often exacerbated by the roles that people wear: if you have a role of responsibility then you can be held accountable to that role. But what do we really mean by responsibility? Who or what are we responsible to or for? By participating in dialogue we can learn to view responsibility in two forms: one, that we are responsible for, and to ourselves; for our thoughts, feelings and responses to others, and for how and when we use our voices and how and when we listen: and two, we begin to feel a sense of collective responsibility for the group; for what we are creating together by sharing meaning and co-inquiring. Lastly, it became clear that by taking on roles or wearing labels we very often restrict ourselves, and by doing so limit what we can offer to each other in organisations or in society. If we meet from a place of ‘I am ‘ versus ‘my role is’ can we act from a greater place of freedom and energy to offer our skills, passions and interests to others.

ROLES

The theme of roles emerged in the next dialogue as well. We were exploring together ways that we can manage emotions that arise from participants in dialogue. It became clear that the roles we wear can often repress us, and when we take them off, we can show our full range of emotions and connect with each other from a place of common humanity. In a dialogue we are responsible for our emotional responses, however, my offer to the group was that it can be helpful to equip people with the language of feelings and needs, so that they are able to take ownership of their emotions in a way that does not require shame of experiencing feelings that often perceived to be ‘negative.’

“Emotions bring the life to the dialogue”

— -Dialogue participant

POWER

The final dialogue I participated in was exploring power and fragmentation in organisations. The energy that arose in the group was a clear indicator for me that there is a lot of energy around the topic of power. This is because we have all experienced the expressions of power in both positive and negative ways. Power can be spoken about, and thought about, but ultimately we experience power, we feel it, and its consequences. We very often ignore the power dynamics that are at play and present in every situation, and relationship. This can often be because of hierarchical power structures that are in place that create fear of the repercussions of naming power. From where do we find the courage to name and speak to power. For me it happens when there is something personal at stake, when we recognise that something is important to us in relation to our values, when we have a history with the person, people or experience, and when we are able to take a risk. We all experience power differently in relation to these factors and we are able to experience and witness that in a dialogic context. Our experience of power is also influenced by the quality of our relationships and the intention we bring to them.

Final reflections

The conference provided a very rich experience and reaffirms my passion and belief in dialogue and its ability to bring about change and healing in the world.

Dialogue creates a space that allows us to be seen, heard and appreciated: these are basic human needs that we all have and that are often not met in us.

Dialogue allows us to Be together, which is vital for good quality Doing.

We bring our history/experience, the roles we wear, our responsibilities, and what’s important to us to a dialogue and we can learn by sharing these and listening to others.

We may be able to operate in the world as an individual well but we have forgotten how to be together well in groups. Dialogue allows us to witness and experience how we are together and inquire into the group dynamics that arise. The structures we exist in are all made of groups: organisations, communities, families; and we have to ask ourselves what would we gain from learning to be together well because ultimately we are all one group, and dialogue allows us to reconnect with that feeling and create new meaning together, that can create action that serves each member of the group.