finding true I-thou interactions and relationships
shifting from me or you to us
moving from understanding someone while being right to being mutually committed to something you both can support
Focusing not on what is inside either of us, but the interaction that is ours
Beyond Encouraging
Paraphrase plus
Asking for a paraphrase
Building the space between us
Asking for an example
Encouraging self-disclosure
Running with the metaphor
Dialogue Strategy 2: Focus on common interests, not devisive ones.
Dialog is a converation with a center, not sides.
Dialogue Strategy 3: Keep dialog and decision making compartmentalized.
Decision making is getting to yes
Dialogue is getting to understanding
Cases and Emotion
Yankelovich, 58-72
Example: Research institute hiring decision by board
There is a natural human predisposition to see criticism of how we do things as a criticism of us.
The result is often defensiveness
Or worse, countercriticism
It is the natural path of conflict, and one of the primary reasons why people involved in conflict NEVER point to the same event as the the starting point of the conflict
punctuation
symmetrical escalation
kitchen-sinking
It takes two to make a fight.
But different subcultures make different assumptions, and criticism of how we do things is usually about advocating another way of doing things that is valued within a subculture.
This, in its essence, is what Nola Heidelbaugh's book Judgement, Rhetoric, and the Problem of Incommensurability, is about.
"two opposing sides cannot translate the issue into each others' vocabulary."
So how do we build bridges between the varied assumptions of different subcultures.
Nola recommends creating awareness of opposing arguments
Yankelovich puts it a bit more simply: clarify assumptions.
Dialogue Strategy 4: Clarify assumptions that lead to subculture distortions.
Assumptions are often a bigger issue that get in the way of smaller issues.
Understanding assumptions often makes it easier to move forward with a win-win strategy.
Dialogue Strategy 5: Bring forth your own assumptions before speculating on those of others.
Opening yourself up is a risk, but it will encourage others to do the same
Self-disclosure leads to reciprocity and trust
Dialogue Strategy 6: Use specific cases to raise general issues.
In truth, its usually conflict over small things that points to a much larger value discongruity.
Example: Hospital discussion of patient request in the light of managed care costs.
Dialogue Strategy 7: Focus on conflicts between value systems, not people.
Those conflicts are often within us.
Competing subcultural assumptions in our own subculture.
Dialogue Strategy 8: When appropriate, express the emotions that accompany strongly held views.
This works best when the emotion seems out of character, so its good to save it.
But we need to remember that values are fundamental. It is natural to feel emotion when our values are compromised.
Its OK to feel angry.
The question is what we do with it
Empathy and Trust
Yankelovich, 73-89
Stewart, 585-594
Dialogue Strategy 9: Initiate dialogue through a gesture of empathy.
Empathy can take many forms
A statement of understanding
An act of compassion
Simply working together on the same thing
Apologies are often an effective empathic gesture.
Empathy is an effective way to create a feeling of equality and openness.
It can also help us break through to assumptions
Sometimes our assumptions are deep, and they spill over from the past into the present.
Transference
Dialogue Strategy 10: Be sure trust exists before addressing transferrence distortions.
Unless otherwise noted, the contents of this page
were written by participants on the Media Space Wiki, operated by Davis Foulger,
and should be cited accordingly. For example (APA): Foulger, D. and other
participants. (August 27, 2008). Relationships And Communities Session Seventeen. MediaSpaceWiki. Retrieved on from
http://evolutionarymedia.com/wiki.htm?RelationshipsAndCommunitiesSessionSeventeen.